“We have been abandoned mid-way on our journey to justice,” Turkan Elci said in the press conference.

“We have been treated as suspects, even though we are victims. But we continued on our path with hope,” she added.

“We thought we could see impunity in these court rooms,” she said. “But people of the law cannot start from prejudices. Tahir Elci pushed away a language of violence until his last breath. He is a human rights defender whose sense of fraternity is high.”

The court “does not think of society as much as we do”, said Turkan Elci, who also studied law after her husband’s death and became a lawyer. “This is one of the most important cases in the country, but I cannot say anything hopeful about it.”

The family’s lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz said Elci’s death had many similarities to the murder of Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007.

The case on Elci’s death started 4.5 years after the fact, and the family and their lawyers have argued that the delay had been detrimental.

“We were faced with a low quality indictment after 4.5 years,” Diyarbakir Bar Association’s current chairman Nahit Eren said. “From the day the investigation started, evidence collection was geared towards proving that (PKK) killed Elci.”

Tahir Elci was shot and killed in Diyarbakır on Nov. 28, 2015, during a press statement against curfews declared in Kurdish-majority cities and towns as clashes started again between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) following a 2.5 year long ceasefire.

Elci, whose human rights advocacy helped shape the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) case law on torture and enforced disappearances, was killed in front of the historic Four Pillared Minaret as shots were fired during a chase between police units and suspected PKK militants.

“Four witnesses were heard by the court. They told the court they did not witness the murder. These were the PKK members in Sur. They were made some promises,” Eren said. “One of them sent me a letter detailing the torture he endured and what prosecutors promised him which lenience. But the court did not take this allegation of torture seriously. A prosecutor used his influence to prevent a fair trial. Whoever it was that tried to cover up this case, they turned the focus towards PKK members.”

One of the witnesses said the prosecutor had sworn to him that he would be released if he “help us attribute these incidents to the PKK”.

“Even if a lawyer comes, don’t talk about (the request), otherwise you could both get into trouble. This is the only way out,” the witness claimed the prosecutor had told him.

The family’s lawyers appealed several times to have Ahmet Davutoglu, who was prime minister at the time, to testify in court. Eren repeated the call at the press conference.

Davutoglu had said at the time that Elci’s death had been “either an assassination plot”, where he said the target was Turkey, or Elci had been “caught in the crossfire” in the clashes.

In Sept. 2021, during a visit to Diyarbakır with the Future Party (GP) that he founded after leaving the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Davutoglu said Elci “fell victim to a political assassination”.

According to a report by the London-based company Forensic Architecture (FA) based on videos taken during the press event, there was a single bullet that killed Elci.

“Neither of the two PKK members appears to have fired the fatal shot,” FA said. The company found “no auditory evidence of a long-range weapon fired from a considerably different distance”.

Meanwhile, three police officers had direct line of fire towards the slain lawyer, and were seen discharging their weapons multiple times. FA concluded:

“While the investigation does not determine which of the police officers on scene is responsible for Elci’s death, it does identify the most likely suspects. The investigation does not determine whether the lethal shot was fired with the intention of hitting Elçi.”

The three police officers, Mesut Sevgi, Fuat Tan and Sinan Tabur, were added as suspects to the case four years later, and were charged with ‘causing death by conscious recklessness’.

PKK militant Ugur Yakisir was held responsible for the death of two other police officers in the scene, and charged with killing a police officer and injuring another. Yakisir was also charged with killing Elci, despite reports suggesting otherwise.

“The indictment was drafted in a way to claim that Elci was accidentally killed by three police officers, and intentionally by Ugur Yakisir. However, Elci was killed by a single bullet,” the family’s lawyers said in a statement they prepared for the press.

Two e-mails to the Justice Ministry were entered into evidence when the trial started. The letters said Yakisir had been under surveillance by the intelligence service for a year, and that his every move was monitored. Elci was also under surveillance at the time, the anonymous letters said. But intelligence officials had not notified the police that the man they had been chasing on the day had been known to be a PKK militant, and had been armed at the time.

The letters were not investigated or verified, despite the lawyers’ appeals.

Case prosecutor Kenan Karaca allegedly “pressured and threatened witnesses to force false statements”, the lawyers said.

Elci had been receiving death threats at the time, following an appearance on CNN Turk television where he said the PKK was not a terrorist organization but “an armed political movement that has certain political demands and a significant support base in society”.

Turkey, the European Union and the United States list PKK as a terrorist organization over civilian deaths it is held responsible for since its first armed action in 1984.

Elci’s comments sparked outrage and a wave of harassment, on social media in particular with spillover to the streets. The lawyer was subsequently detained to be charged with terrorist propaganda, after pro-government newspapers reported of his “terrorist activities”.

“Tahir Elci has been the last victim of that nefarious tradition that always tried to keep social conflicts alive and warm and annihilated those who think differently, such as Krikor Zohrab, Sabahattin Ali, Ahmet Kaya and Hrant Dink,” his lawyers said.

Before his death, Elci addressed both the PKK and Turkish authorities to call for a ceasefire and return to the peace process, they added. Elci was also facing charges for visiting the town of Cizre in the neighboring Sirnak province to report on human rights violations during the strict curfew imposed there.

The lawyers pointed to Elci’s non-violence stance, saying:

“Tahir Elci always followed a non-violent path throughout his life and stood against all kinds of human rights violations, regardless of who the perpetrator or victim was. With his criticism, Elci targeted not only the rights violations perpetrated by the state, but also the actions and attitudes of armed organizations, especially their attacks that targeted the civilians.”

Several public officials had failed to fulfil their duties and responsibility to protect Elci, and should face trial, the lawyers said.

Meanwhile, the two PKK militants involved in the case had been able to “meet, prepare and travel for another attack”, after they shot up a maternity ward the previous day, “due to the obvious fault, intent or negligence of the police officers in charge of the intelligence”, the lawyers said, arguing that the duty of care had been failed.

“Incident scene footage, the witness statements and the radio conversations of the policemen reveal that the security forces fired bullets continuously and randomly, without paying any attention to the journalists and civilians such as Tahir Elci who were present at the scene at the time,” they said, adding:

“In a city like Diyarbakir, where frequent armed clashes had been taking place at that time, the experienced policemen, who had been receiving trainings on this subject, should have been organized in a way that would prevent civilians from being harmed as much as possible, assuming that they did not want to cause any deaths with their actions. In this regard, the security forces’ failure to take the necessary precautions reveals the complete neglect by the policemen of the rigor that is required in the operations they carry out using lethal weapons.”

The lawyers and Elci’s family said they would pursue every lead until “every individual, public or security personnel guilty of negligence or recklessness at all stages of protection, prevention, precaution, investigation and prosecution”.

“Our legal battle will continue until real justice is served,” they concluded.

Ahval

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