ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A court in Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakir province has acquitted a police officer who shot dead a young Kurdish young man during 2017 Newroz celebrations despite the public prosecutor's demand for nine years in prison.
Identified only by his initials Y.S., the police officer shot 23-year-old Kemal Kurkut in Diyarbakir province’s Baglar district on March 21, 2017 while the university student was en route to attend Newroz (Kurdish new year) celebrations.
Kurkut was carrying a knife when he was shot by the police officer, with the incident captured by a Kurdish journalist at the scene.
The public prosecutor had demanded up to nine years in prison for the officer’s use of “excessive force”, the independent Duvar news outlet reported on Tuesday.
However, the Diyarbakır Seventh Heavy Penal Court decided on Tuesday to acquit the accused, ignoring the Public Prosecutor’s demand and pictures which purportedly prove the murder, according to the news outlet.
The court said there was insufficient proof to convict the accused, according to the BBC's Turkish service.
Kurkut was initially accused of carrying a suicide bomb, which was debunked by photos in which he was shown to be topless when he was shot.
Abdulrahman Gok, the journalist who took the pictures, told Ozguruz radio on Tuesday that had it not been for his pictures, “an honest young man like Kemal.. would be known as a person who tried to turn Newroz celebration into a bloodbath.”
Gok faces up to 20 years of imprisonment for “making propaganda for a terrorist organization" after he covered the 2009 Newroz celebrations for Roj TV, an outlet affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). He currently works as a news editor at the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya Agency (MA).
“The fact that he was not sentenced at all but acquitted instead … is a very good decision to reveal the real face of the judicial and legal systems because the incident was recorded with a camera,” he said.
Ercan Kurkut, the brother of the deceased, says his family feel “helpless” in light of the acquittal.
“Believe we are not good. This time we wanted to be wrong, but unfortunately we were not. One feels helpless. We have trouble breathing,” he said in a tweet on Tuesday.
Cihan Aydin, chair of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, condemned the court decision, saying “police impunity continues at full speed.”
Meral Danis Bestas, parliamentarian for the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) also spoke out against the decision, saying that "Kurds have been trying to prove that their people have been killed in this country for a hundred years" but "no one has been sentenced for killing Kurds."
