Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a presidential pardon for a man convicted to life in prison for his participation in the murder of 33 intellectuals in the 1993 Sivas Massacre.
Hayrettin Gül, whose original sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole when Turkey removed the death penalty, had appealed for release due to his advanced age and health issues.
Erdoğan had previously pardoned Ahmet Turan Kılıç, another man convicted in the Sivas Massacre case.
On 2 July 1993, the Madımak Hotel in Sivas was surrounded by a mob of thousands of people who were enraged over renowned novelist Aziz Nesin’s declaration that he was not a Muslim and his intention to translate Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.
The mob, Gül and Kılıç among them, set fire to the hotel where Nesin and other visitors of the Pir Sultan Abdal festival were staying. According to the indictment, Gül was seen shouting “Burn it up” as the mob set the fire and prevented those trapped in the building from leaving. Police officers testified that Kılıç was encouraging the mob, shouting “This secular order will fall”, and “Long live Sharia”. He was also telling the men that the attack on the hotel was a “jihad”, while others in the crowd chanted “Aziz the Devil”, and “Sivas will be Aziz’s grave”. At least one of the arsonists was heard shouting “hellfire”.
Nesin survived the fire, despite being pushed off a ladder into the crowd as he tried to get out, but 30 artists, poets, musicians, photographers, actors, three children, and two hotel workers lost their lives. The youngest victim was 12 years old. Two people from the mob also died in the commotion outside.
The massacre deeply impacted Turkey’s Alevis, a minority sect of Islam that has suffered several large-scale massacres under the Ottoman Empire and the republic of Turkey.
More than 120 people faced trial for the massacre, and 85 people were sentenced to two to 15 years in prison in the initial case. Following years of back-and-forth with higher courts overturning various rulings, 33 people including Kılıç and Gül were sentenced to death, later commuted to life in prison without parole.
Four of the lawyers who defended the Madımak suspects and convicts entered the Turkish parliament from Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) over the years.
During the trials, the courts separated from the main case the file of seven suspects who had fled. While efforts continued to capture the suspects at large, the court ruled that the statute of limitations had run out in 2012. Surviving victims and families of the deceased appealed the ruling, and the case is at the Turkish Constitutional Court.
For three of the fugitives, the top criminal court in capital Ankara will hold a hearing on 14 September to discuss the statute of limitations.
“We wish the court could rule that the Madımak case is a crime against humanity and therefore the statute of limitations does not apply,” Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Association Secretary General İsmail Ateş said ahead of the hearing. “But what court could stand against this decision that the president made?”
“The president’s pardon is an order to the court to finalise this case on 14 September,” Ateş continued.
“Thousands of prisoners qualify for the presidential pardon due to sickness or old age, people have died behind bars. Unfortunately, this forgiveness is not afforded to those persons,” lawyer Ali Yılmaz said.
