The details of an indictment about the 2018 killings of the members of a Kurdish family in Turkey’s south-eastern province of Şanlıurfa was first made public by Turkey’s state news agency before it was shared by the lawyers of the family, Mezopotamya News reported on Saturday.
The prosecutors asked for life sentences for 14 suspects out of the 19 included in the indictment which is finally completed four years after the incident, according to details reported by Anadolu Agency (AA).
The remaining members of the Şenyaşar family have been sitting every day in front of the Şanlıurfa courthouse since March 2021 to demand justice despite continuous obstructions of the public authorities. Emine Şenyaşar, who saw her husband and two sons murdered and another son prisoned, received a human rights award this year for her persistent activism.
The prosecutors in Urfa separately investigated the initial attack inside the Şenyaşar family’s store in Suruç that left the father of the family killed and the pursuing attacks in a public hospital which led to the killing of two Şenyaşar brothers who were wounded.
One of the two brothers that survived was sentenced to 37 years and 9 months in prison while only Enver Yıldız of the assailant party received a prison sentence of 18 years.
Emine Şenyaşar and her son Ferit Şenyaşar find the sentencing unlawful, saying Fadıl Şenyaşar, who killed the AKP deputy İbrahim Halil Yıldız’s brother during the assault against their family shop, was acting in self-defence.
Protesting learning the news about the new indictment accepted by a criminal court in Urfa not from their lawyers but from the AA, which in 2018 rushed to label the Şenyaşar family members as terrorists, Ferit Şenyaşar told Mesopotamia News that the indictment fell short of fulfilling their demands for justice.
“We are following our case from the media,” he said. “We want a fair trial. They say that the camera recordings at the hospital were stolen, that is impossible,” Şenyaşar added, pointing out that there were hundreds of policemen present during the incident at the hospital.
“This sentence was given according to instructions,” he continued referring to his brother’s prison sentence. “If my brother returns home, we can stop our justice vigil and go home,” he said.
