It has been exactly one year since Amed Bar Association Chair Tahir Elçi’s death. But in this year, as expected, no perpetrators have been put on trial, evidence of vital importance was either damaged or never surfaced.
Amed Bar Association Chair Tahir Elçi had spent his life to bring the “unidentified murders” to light and to have justice for burned villages, and was murdered last year on November 28 while he read a statement in front of the Four Footed Minaret to oppose a piece of history being destroyed. His last minutes and his dead body laying by the columns of the historic minaret were recorded by the journalists there. It had all happened in the blink of an eye, and Tahir Elçi was in the range of policemen constantly shooting. It was very clear really, the footage explained many things, but the curfew declared right after the murder, the crime scene not being investigated and the evidence not being collected left the matter hanging. There is a threat that his fate will be the same as the cases he advocated for, the bombed Kuşkonar and Koçağılı villages, the Lice massacre, the Roboskî massacre and other murders Cemal Temizöz caused.
THE FOOTAGE IS CLEAR
Not one perpetrator has been put on trial yet in the Elçi case. The preliminary autopsy report states that the bullet entered from behind his right ear and exited from above his left temple. Then the criminal autopsy reports claimed that the gun, the angle, the position Elçi was shot in could not be medically and physically determined. The video footage showed the policemen to Elçi’s left fired continuous shots. In the footage, two young men clashing with the police by the end of the street are seen running towards the street of the Four Footed Minaret. The police are seen continuously shooting at them, but the two young men never return fire. The surfacing footage and witness statements pointed towards a high probability of Elçi being shot by a police bullet. The execution took place in plain sight, and it was constantly manipulated.
PROSECUTOR CHANGED 3 TIMES
The case file was under a de facto secrecy decree for a long time. The lawyers weren’t allowed access to the evidence, while manipulated news were served through mainstream media. The “claim he was shot by PKK” was published on full pages. Meanwhile, the prosecutor of the case changed three times. The case went nowhere fast, despite new information coming to light all the time. Lawyers demanded the Mardin Kebab House CCTV footage be added to the case file as it had a full shot of the crime scene, but the lawyers never got to watch this footage. Although CSI units conducted two investigations in the grounds, no casings were collected. When it was revealed that 17 minutes of the CCTV records of the post office nearby was erased, it was more and more apparent that the case would be left in limbo.
“WE FILED 100 DEMANDS, NONE OF THEM WAS MET”
Amed Bar Association Chair Ahmet Özmen spoke to the ANF and said Elçi had dedicated his life to the fight for justice and democracy. Özmen stated that the investigation wasn’t handled effectively and said: “It has been one year since the incident. No suspect statements have been taken yet. There is no secrecy decree on the case file, but we don’t have access to all of it. The prosecutors inform the press about the case, but they don’t give the information to the lawyers. We demanded Elçi’s murderers and the dark powers behind them to come to light. They are seriously hurting the case with manipulated news. We filed close to a hundred demands to the investigation offices, none of them has been met.”
“CCTV FOOTAGE IS OF VITAL IMPORTANCE”
Özmen said the CCTV footage from Mardin Kebab House was vitally important as their cameras should have recorded the moment Elçi was shot from a good angle, and continued: “As of November 30, we notified the Public Prosecutor’s Office of this piece of evidence. We stated that due to the clashes, it was important to gather this piece of evidence at once. The evidence was gathered, but it hasn’t been processed yet, and we have yet to see it. Even this shows that the investigation is not run swiftly or effectively. After the coup attempt, one third of the judges in the system were removed from duty. The remaining prosecutors were given this case. The prosecutor of the case changed three times up to now. Last week, the public prosecutor changed again.”
“WE ARE CONCERNED”
Özmen summarized his thoughts on the case file as: “After Tahir Elçi was murdered, the mainstream media said 3 people were taken into custody. But that was to keep up appearances. These are perception operations. The judiciary doesn’t have a good record when it comes to bringing such cases to justice. The concrete example of this is the unsolved murder cases of the 1990s. The unidentified murders have almost never been brought to light. In 2009, some unidentified murder cases were reopened and they were transferred to different cities during the trial process. Then the acquittals started coming again. When we consider the past, the judiciary’s record is negative. And when we look at the state of the judiciary in the past, we fear the Tahir Elçi file will be left in the dark and the perpetrators will never be found. We are, and the society in general is, concerned about this case because of this.”
