A Turkish criminal court have re-sentenced the former co-mayors of the Kurdish-majority southeastern province of Hakkari to 11 years and three months in prison in a first hearing of their retrial, Mezopotamya News Agency reported on Monday.
The People’s Democratic Party’s (HDP) former Hakkari co-mayors Dilek Hatipoğlu and Nurullah Çiftçi were handed the same prison sentence in 2018 on charges of “disrupting the state’s unity and integrity” by the Turkish Court of Appeals, which overturned 15 year sentences previously decided by the provincial criminal court.
Hatipoğlu and Çiftçi’s lawyers later applied to Turkey’s Constitutional Court on the grounds that their clients’ right to a fair trial was violated. Turkey’s supreme court overturned the verdicts in November 2022, rejecting lawyers’ claim that the co-mayors were not tried in reasonable time, but ruling that their right to fair trial was violated because the politicians were not brought in person to court hearings.
The co-mayors were arrested by a local court in 2015 for attempting to damage the constitutional system, after they were detained in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır the same year for contributing to press statements on self-autonomy.
Monday’s hearing at the criminal court in Hakkari was followed by a large crowd, including HDP lawmakers.
“Conditions for right to fair trial is my right and those rights should be provided,” said Hatipoğlu during the hearing, adding that she have been denied to right to a fair trial for eight years.
“Your court should provide me the conditions and the time required to use my right to defend myself,” she added, telling the court that she was brought to Hakkari from a prison 1,300 kilometres away and was kept alone in a cell for 15 days prior to the hearing. Çiftçi also argued that his right to fair trial has been violated on the same grounds.
The court evaluated the co-mayors’ demands over right to fair trial as their choice to enjoy their right to remain silent and re-sentenced them once again to 11 years and three months in prison after a very short break. The co-mayors have the right to appeal the verdict.
“The decision made by the Hakkari 2nd Criminal Court clearly violates the presumption of innocence, one of the main principles of the law, the principle of equality and the constitution,” the Hakkari branch of the Human Right Association (İHD) said on Twitter after the court announced its verdict.