The Diyarbakır Bar Association on Monday raised an objection to an indictment filed against five Turkish police officers who allegedly beat a 14-year-old boy in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakır (Amed) in March, citing an inadequate description of the offence which does not include the crimes of torture and intentional injury.
The prosecutor’s indictment, that only filed for the crime of deprivation of liberty against the suspects, was accepted by the court. The bar association then raised the motion to dismiss the indictment. Three of the five police officers remain under arrest.
The indictment includes reports on the beatings inflicted on the teenager as well as the statements made by the police officers who denied the accusations.
According to the indictment, the prosecutor considered the teenager’s accounts as “abstract statements” that he was sworn at by the police officers and subjected to beatings in the police vehicle, while accepting the police officers’ statements as “accurate” that they removed the plastic handcuffs after learning the age of the teenager and that they had not beaten the child.
The prosecutor requested jail sentences ranging from one to five years for “deprivation of liberty” regarding keeping the teenager in an armoured vehicle for 25-30 minutes without permission, and from four months to three years for “damage to property” for throwing the teenager’s mobile phone out of the vehicle.
The teenager was reportedly abducted and tortured by the police officers after Newroz (Kurdish new year) celebrations in the Lice (Licê) district on 21 March. The officers threatened to kill the boy unless he memorised the lyrics of the Turkish anthem, later dumping him in a remote location with hands and feet tied.
