Mehmet Sıddık Akış of the DEM Party was elected the Mayor of Hakkari province, winning 48.92 percent of the vote in the elections held on 31 March. He was taken into custody in Van on 3 June morning and the municipality was blockaded. The Turkish Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that Akış was suspended from duty and a trustee was appointed in his place.

The trial of Mehmet Sıddık Akış was concluded at Hakkari Heavy Penal Court No 1 on Wednesday. The court sentenced Akış to 19 years and 6 months in prison. An arrest warrant was also issued. 

Background

The democratically elected co-mayor of Hakkari Municipality was suspended from office after being detained on 3 June. Governor Ali Çelik was appointed as trustee in his place. 

According to a statement released by the ministry, Akış was detained within the scope of an investigation on the allegation of ‘membership in an illegal organisation’. However, the details of the investigation are not yet known due to a confidentiality order. The statement included allegations that justified the appointment of a trustee. The allegations in the case against Akış, which has been ongoing since 2014, were listed. 

The investigation is based on popular protests in the city between 2009 and 2014. Akış and 15 others, including politicians of the time, are on trial within the scope of this investigation.

In the last hearing of the case, the prosecutor presented a 30-page final opinion on the merits.

The section of the indictment against Akış included phone taps from the mentioned period of the time, allegations of secret witnesses who testified against hundreds of people, and far-fetched comments. Akış, who served as the central district chair of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) and the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) which replaced it, was accused of being a ‘member of the Presidium of the KCK/Hakkari Founding City Assembly’.

The accusation was based on secret witness allegations, comments made on the basis of telephone taps and various protests organised in the city at the time.

A noteworthy detail is Akış's speech on the attack against Kurdish politician Ahmet Türk in Samsun. It is said that Akış addressed the crowd at a demonstration held on 13 April 2010 in the centre of Hakkari which ended without incident. It is stated that anthems were sung during the demonstration and incidents broke out in some neighbourhoods of the city afterwards.

Giving details about the events, the opinion claims that the protests were organised by those who took part in the ‘Founding City Assembly Action Commission’. and Akış is accused through this allegation. However, the relevant section also includes Akış's attempt to end the incidents. His words about the need to end the protests are characterised as ‘instructions’.

The prosecutor demanded Akış to be sentenced on the grounds of ‘interview records, evidence seized from searches, previous actions of the defendant, identification reports regarding the activities he participated in’.