The Free Women’s Movement (Tevgera Jinen Azad, TJA) spokeswoman Ayşe Gökkan, who is jailed in Sincan Women's Closed Prison in Ankara, filed a criminal complaint against Abou Hatim Shaqra, a top leader of the Ahrar al-Sharqiya mercenary group.

Gökkan’s criminal complaint pointed out that Shaqra was responsible for many murders, including the murder of Kurdish female politician Hevrin Khalaf. Recent media reports exposed his studies at Artuklu University in Mardin. According to reports, Abou Hatim Shaqra enrolled at Artuklu University using the name Ahmed İhsan Fayyad el-Hayes and graduated on June 6 this year.

“I file a criminal complaint against Artuklu University, former intelligence head Hakan Fidan, who helped Shaqra to continue the activities of his organization in Turkey, other intelligence officials and all public officials who protect these criminals,” Gökkan said.

Gökkan noted that the crimes committed by this mercenary group and its supporters were recognized as serious war crimes and thus it was the duty of the prosecutor's office to go into action against these crimes and criminals.

The Ahrar al-Sharqiya mercenary group is accused of the murder of many civilians, especially including Kurdish female politician Hevrin Khalaf, Secretary General of the Future Syria Party in 2019. In July 2021, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the group for its crimes.

Hevrin Khalaf

Hevrin Khalaf was a politician and human rights activist, born in the city of al-Malikiyah on 15 November 1984. She studied in Malikiyah schools, after which she enrolled at the University of Aleppo to study at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and graduated in 2009.

At the founding of the Syrian Future Party on March 27, 2018 in Raqqa, she was selflessly committed to the task of Secretary General. Speaking on the occasion of the 8th anniversary of the popular uprising in Syria, Havrin expressed her conviction that the political crisis in Syria cannot be resolved by war. She said, "Eight years have passed. The popular uprisings against the crisis and the struggle of the peoples of Syria have been widely sacrificed and turned into a war. The ongoing crisis in Syria, which is the reason for the displacement and murder of the population, cannot be settled without a political solution.”

In each of her speeches, Havrin emphasized the importance of dialogue among the various Syrian political forces and communities. She insisted that peoples should determine their own future and shape their own political and social lives together. Through her political struggle, Havrin called on all circles of society and political actors to participate in a democratic solution to the crisis in Syria.

With the beginning of the Turkish occupation war against the territories of the Democratic Autonomous Administration in northern and eastern Syria on October 9, 2019, Havrin resolutely continued her political struggle. Havrin Khalaf has played an unforgettable role in the women's revolution of Rojava and the community of peoples with her life and work.

In an ambush on 12 October 2019, she was brutally executed by Turkish-backed Ahrar al-Sharqiya fighters near the M4 Motorway south of Tal Abyad.