Continuing his defence against the case reports compiled into him, former HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş said, “I am being prosecuted for saying, ‘Mr Öcalan’ but the state’s coast guard forces took my party’s delegation 23 times to İmralı Island in the Marmara Sea. I was personally included in eight of these. We went countless times to meet with the senior KCK administration in Qandil. This took place with the government’s full knowledge, support and approval.” The court ruled to extend Demirtaş’s detention. The next hearing will be heard on 18-19 June.
The fourth hearing of the trial in which former HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş, in detention at Edirne High Security Prison since 4 November, is being prosecuted continued at Ankara Sincan Prison Complex. Selahattin Demirtaş was connected via video link from Edirne F-Type Prison to the hearing that started at 10 am.
Demirtaş set out by saying, “A large number of our party members were detained by the AKP-Gulenist partnership in 2010-2011. We, too, were accused of terrorist organization membership by the same Gulenist prosecutors thanks to our endeavours to stand by them and nine years later this time I am being prosecuted.”
Saying they had held the İmralı and Qandil talks with the government’s full knowledge, support and approval, Selahattin Demirtaş commented, “Now, I am being prosecuted for, in 2011, addressing as “Mr” the people we had countless meetings with on İmralı and at Qandil in 2010. I am being prosecuted for supposedly saying, ‘Let talks be held with them.’ This is precisely where principles are lacking.”
Demirtaş said, “We did not carry out terrorist activity. We supported neither violence nor arms. We strove to solve these problems in the manner we thought and believed to be the most intelligent. You (the court bench) are continuing to treat this as “terrorist activity,” and I will continue to explain things.”
Also mentioning the photograph posted on social media of those kissing the hand of Osman Sarıgün, who punched CHP Leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Demirtaş said, “Will proceedings be taken against those who took photographs and videos and posted them with talk of a ‘national hero?’ Is crime and praising crime involved?”
Following Demirtaş's defence against the case reports, the prosecution made its recommendations known.
The hearing prosecutor applied for an extension of Demirtaş's detention on the grounds that there existed strong suspicion he had committed the crimes of which he was accused and these crimes were predicate crimes, and additionally the defence had not been completed and judicial control measures would be inadequate.
Announcing its interim ruling following discussions, the court ordered the continuation of Demirtaş's detention.
The hearing was adjourned until 18-19 June.
(Translated by Tim Drayton)
Bülent Falakaoğlu
Hakkı Özdal
