On 9 January 2013, Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) founding member Sakine Cansız (54), youth movement member Leyla Şaylemez (24), and Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) representative Fidan Doğan (28) were executed with deadly shots fired from a single gun into the head of each woman in the Kurdish Information Centre in Paris.
🔴#PODCAST| The assassinations case is still going on with new evidence coming from all over Europe in Europe networks of Turkish intelligence are trying to assassinate different people #Kurdish or #Turks because they are opponents. – Lawyer Antoine Comtehttps://t.co/rG8pfiwHB2 pic.twitter.com/7mrujhqFWu
— MedyaNews (@1MedyaNews) January 10, 2023
The sole suspect was Ömer Güney, a Turkish national who allegedly had ties with Turkey’s intelligence services (MIT). The case was closed after Güney died in prison in 2016, a month before the start of his trial, despite the revelations which included a number of audio recordings as well as the investigation of the French authorities that uncovered the existence of connections between the suspect and MIT. The case was reopened three years later in 2019 but there is a partial confidentiality order on the case files to date.
In January 2022, Monsieur Antoine Comte, the French lawyer leading the fight for justice for the victims of the 2013 Paris killings, spoke with Mark Campbell from Medya News about the case. Today, we are publishing a full transcript of last year’s podcast, to include Comte’s comments about the legal struggle around the incident. The lawyers’ insights are still starkly relevant. Another year has passed, and on the 10th anniversary of the 2013 assassination, the case is still open.
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Antoine Comte: This case is a very important case for me. First because I knew Fidan Doğan.
And one has to remember, when she was murdered in Paris, the President of the European Parliament asked for a minute of silence. In other words, she was very well known. Not only as a militant or an activist, but she was known because she was a very important go-between, between the Kurds and the French politicians, the European politicians, she was often in the European Parliament.
And so, when the President of the European Parliament asked for a minute of silence, I honestly felt very bad, because no authority in France had the guts to do the same thing.
Now, one has to recall that for historical reasons, usually linked with the post second world war, end of the colonial era, a lot of people were assassinated in France because they considered France to be a ‘safe country’ which was not true. And the number of people was so important. We tried to work on this issue a number of years ago with some friends, and every day we discovered more and more victims of murderous states.
Now this is a concept I have to explain. Political crimes can be committed by countries of course, but in our history, in the history, of France, no-one has ever pointed out the country responsible for these political crimes. Now I personally have been in charge of legal cases, such as Algerians who have been killed, a lawyer, in 1987, because he was a go between the opposition to the Algerian government. I was also the lawyer for Palestinians killed in France. And everyone knew, everyone knew, who was responsible for these crimes. I mean, generally, of course in the case of the Algerian it was the Algerian state, in the case of the Palestinian it was the Israeli intelligence and in other cases as well, we have had this going on for years.
Since you have to remember that in 1964, Ben Barka who was an opponent to the monarchy in Morocco was murdered in Paris with the head of the French police and hoodlums, thugs. Now the case is ongoing, can you imagine, from 1964! We have this case going on and finally nobody has been sentenced for the assassination of Ben Barka. So, what is very different in this case aside from the fact that for me personally, I was very moved by the assassination of a woman I’d known and worked with in many cases we had together. Just to give you an idea, it so happens that I usually cut off my mobile phone when I sleep and this precise day for some odd reason my mobile phone was not cut off and there I got a phone call at 6am in the morning, say that Doğan had been killed.
But the problem was that the person who called me did not know the name, the ‘little’ name [nickname] because you know, the Kurds always have ‘little’ names, so her name was something like…
Mark Campbell: “Rojbin I think’.
Antoine Comte: Right, that’s it, so I knew nothing about this name and knew her as Fidan Doğan. I worked with her on many cases, worked on cases in the court etc…and then I said, and it was such a shock I must admit, I said, ‘Well, they haven’t killed Fidan.’ And the man said, ‘They have.’
So this, is a very moving case for me, a very emotional case because of that.
But it so happens that, if the French authorities have shown no courage and usually they show no courage in any of these cases, either in your country or in my country, it so happens that the judges were very determined.
So the first day I came to their office, I knew them very well, they are anti-terrorist judges, I’d been defending Irish and Basque cases, you know. So, I knew the judges well, so I said, ‘Well, now you have a very nice political case’ And the judges say, ‘Well, you know, the police say, it’s a personal affair involving women and men, and etc’.
I said, ‘Look, let’s not talk at this stage. I propose you read the book by Padura, who is a Cuban author, of a book called A Man Who Loved the Dogs, and this book is about the assassination of Trotsky. And then you come back to me afterwards and we will discuss the meaning of this case.
And when I came back to the judges office, apparently she had read the book and said, ‘I understand what you mean’.
And so, this is a typical case of infiltration. The Turkish secret service infiltrated a person who presented himself when he went to the Kurdish association in the suburbs of Paris, as a ‘new born Kurd’. He said, ‘My parents came to Europe but in fact they are Kurds and so I’m sort of a new born Kurd. This was how he, in a certain way convinced people of his honesty but it was very strange because the Kurds always appear as a very tough and militaristic organisation but no information on this person was ever collected. He came and said, ‘I want to help you, I’m willing to help you’, so this is a typical infiltration operation. It is exactly what you read in the book of Padura, the Cuban author of The Man Who Loved the Dogs.
And so this infiltration was highly prepared, and for you to understand why this case is very special, I have to explain, that if we did not have the help of the Turkish newspapers, the Turkish journalists, I don’t think we would have had any progress made in this case. And perhaps this is one of the reasons why the president of Turkey has imprisoned dozens and dozens of journalists, probably the number is something like 4,000 in the present day.
So, the case started, in France, with the arrest of Güney. As you know we have an examining magistrate. I remember the time when the British said, ‘We would like an examining magistrate, we should put an examining magistrate on the first train, under the channel, to get to Britain so we can have an examining magistrate because they do all the work, before we go to court.
And so, at first, it was just police work but it was very efficient police work as they have a very good police group in Paris, and they do very thorough and comprehensive work. And the first thing they checked first was the ballistics of course. And it appeared very clear, that one person had used one gun. Three bullets as you mentioned in your introduction, all persons received three bullets in the head. Nowhere else. And this was a small calibre. Not one that makes a lot of noise or that breaks up the whole body. 7.65 which is a very low calibre. I think it’s a .32 by your analysis.
And, one person had a fourth bullet which was used after her death and the gun was put in her mouth, and this was Doğan. And this was sign, she was the one who had the contacts with the French MPs, with the European MPs, with the European Parliament and she was shot in the mouth, after her death. The work was well done.
Of course we didn’t find the gun. Of course the DNA analysis was incomplete, it could be subjected to opposition from an efficient lawyer. But we got the help from the Turkish journalists in a manner one can never understand.
The first thing which came out was the photograph of Güney’s passport, the photograph of the passport in the paper, and the French didn’t have that passport. And this passport was a passport given by the intelligence service. The second thing, which was absolutely unbelievable, was on YouTube, they put the audio of a conference, without the faces of course, just the words of course, of a conference between Güney and four or three other persons, preparing the murders!
This was given by the Turkish journalists and the Turkish newspapers which we have to say, they made tremendous work. And I understand why they can be prosecuted because they have done so much work that they would do the same against the President if it was necessary. And this is not the end, at the end of the day, and this was hardly a year after the assassinations. At the end of the day we had what I call in French, the mission log, which was the paper, signed by three members, three high ranking members of MIT, which is the secret service of the Turkish government, giving orders to Güney, which we call ‘the source’, to go on with any sabotage, or assassinations.
He can go on with it. And this was interesting because it was said that ‘source’…that ‘our source’ is the one who drives Sakine around Paris. Which was the case, because she was trying to obtain her documents for political asylum transferred from Germany to France. So, he was their ‘source’, of course. He was the man. And then we had the discussion, when are we going to commit to the work we’ve asked you how are you going to be seen, do you have a motor bike to escape. This is how the case came from Turkey. So, the murderers came from Turkey, the orders to murder came from Turkey, and the information against these criminals came from Turkey. This is an unbelievable case. We have nothing like so. As I said, 1964, Ben Barka case, is ongoing!
Now this came by bits and ends but within a year and a half we had all the documents and on top of that we had some more information with police help in Europe because at one stage, Güney went to Holland and they found this phone that was not the phone he was supposed to have, it was another phone, because the police searched the group that came to Holland for a weekend of work or whatever it was.
And we then discovered that in that phone, he had a lot of Turkish numbers going straight to intelligence offices all over Turkey and especially in one part of Turkey which is in charge of the struggle against the Kurds. This was when we discovered that he also had photographs. 400 photographs, which were taken a day before the assassinations. He knew he was going to have to leave the association I presume, so he had the order to go on with the assassinations, I presume. Because he hasn’t been sentenced so we have to say ‘I presume’. But we have no doubt because of all the work that had been done.
So, all this in addition to the first break in the history of political assassinations in France when they have a political background. And this break was the accusation the DPP {Director of Public Prosecutions] made against the secret services of Turkey. This has never been done before, as I said, the authorities have always been very cautious not to involve the criminal state. In this case the DPP decided to involve the criminal state. And he said, this is Turkey. So this is the case and this is why it is an important case.
As you said in your introduction, Güney died. And of course, we have to be very clear, he died a natural death. And I will go as far as I can to say that ‘probably’, he was chosen, because they knew he had an awful sickness. And they knew he had, that he was going to die. But the thing is, they probably… you know how it is, the French cases are very lengthy, when they are criminal cases. This is 1964, the Ben Barka case, it’s still ongoing. They probably thought he would die before anything would happen. The thing is, in this case, they were very quick. Because the French police did some work and the Turkish newspapers did the rest of the work. And so, the accusation was made against the Turkish state. This is unbelievable. This was the first part of the case. But when the DPP opened the case, and had the appointment of the enquiring magistrate, the one the British wanted to put on the first train under the channel.
They always do the same thing. They say we have evidence against for example, Mr Campbell, let’s say and against X. X is all the persons unknown, but who might be, eventually, identified in the case. And so we back to the DPP and said, ‘Look, you called a case against Mr Güney, very well, but what about X? it hasn’t been closed.’ This was a bit of a long story, because we had to see the DPP once, and twice and another three times and another four times….and every time we brought some new elements.
These new elements were very interesting. First we discovered that the work of the Turkish intelligence covers the whole of Europe! So, we discovered that a person who was spying on Kurds and Turks in Germany had been sentenced. And sent back to Turkey by the Germans. So we brought this case in. Then we discovered the case, you know about, in Brussels. And then a cherry on the cake I think you say in English, no? This was the unbelievable arrest of high ranking officers of the MIT, the secret service of Turkey because apparently, the Kurds had themselves infiltrated the MIT, unbelievable! And very, very impressive. And the man, the man or the woman, managed to be so convincing, that one of the Kurdish military leaders would have to come through the frontier with Turkey to go to the hospital, he had a very bad back or something of that sort.
But the arrest could not be made in Turkey because it would make an awful mess, in the Kurdish part of Turkey. So, he or they convinced them to make the arrest in the Northern part of Iraq, the Kurdish part of Iraq. And we have an expression in French that says one who spills the water gets all the water back on his face. And this is what happened. The two high ranking officers, were arrested by the Kurds and they made confessions. Of course, confessions when detained are subject to a certain amount of questions but anyway, they made confessions.
And so, the elements they gave were very important because they explained they hierarchy of the MIT and how decisions of that nature, the assassination of three women in Paris, has to in fact be accepted by the summit of the state. In other words the present president, Erdoğan. That’s the case. So, this is why we obtained from the DPP that the case should be reopened. Because X, meaning the unknown authors, or accessories or whatever you want to say, have not been identified and therefore the case has to go on. And this is what is going on at present. So, it’s a great moment for me, nearly ten years after, nine years, since the assassinations, to say, that the case has not been closed, it’s been closed once, but it’s still going on with new evidence coming from all over Europe, and we now know, that in Europe, you have networks of intelligence, Turkish intelligence, trying to assassinate different people, Kurdish or Turks, because they are opponents.
The last example we have is Austria. In Austria, a man came to the Austrian police and said, ‘I have received orders to assassinate one of your MPs, who is a Kurdish woman, and the European Parliament have a lot of communication on that and has protested against that and the man said that she was the one I should assassinate but I will not because I’m fed up with the assassinations. Of course, one can always think that person has motives of different sorts, but anyway, let’s say Güney did not have these motives at all and he just killed the persons who he was supposed to kill. And of course I presume that because he hasn’t been sentenced and he’s still considered as innocent.
Mark Campbell: I know, as a lawyer you have to be very careful about what you can say in terms of the ongoing case but in summary, what would be your message to the families of Fidan, Leyla and Sakine and all the people who will be attending a demonstration on Sunday on the anniversary of these assassinations. What would be your message in terms of hope that justice will indeed be achieved for the families?
Antoine Comte: Well, let me say, I have two messages. One concerns my own country because I’m a citizen of the country of France, this country. And this message spreads to all the people of other countries involved in the international coalition against Daesh or ISIS. I find it disgusting and profoundly deprived of any dignity, to support the Kurds who have fought against Daesh/ISIS and not take responsibility to involve clearly in political messaging or in a diplomatic way, the people who have ordered and went through with the assassination of these three women. That would be my first comment. I think it’s disgusting and devoid of any form of dignity or pride.
My second message is: We will never stop the case. Till we have people, answering, for the responsibility, within the assassinations. Whatever their level of responsibility, we will never stop the case. People will never stop that case. And we have no reason to stop that case because today in our different systems, impunity cannot be accepted in criminal crimes. In most crimes they are not accepted but in criminal crimes they sometimes get away with murder, if I may say. But this is not acceptable. And if we have to show something to the different governments of our different countries, it’s that we do not accept, what we say in French, ‘le raison de état’ the fact that you accept for political reasons, diplomatic reasons, economic reasons, to shut up. The people who have ordered the crimes have to be indicted, even if they never come to France, they will never come to France, if we find them of course. They have to be sentenced in absentia eventually. This is not the problem, they have to be sentenced. And we have to stop this horrible way of accepting criminal cases, by and for political motives in our country, on our soil. All these three women, were legally in Europe, some of them were born here. All of them had documents to stay here, in Europe and they were murdered! And not protected. And that is a bloody shame!