Diyarbakır, Deniz Tekin - The trial where journalist Ayşegül Doğan faces up to 22 and a half years in prison for her journalistic activities resumed in Diyarbakır, the court ruled to have Doğan provide sample voice recordings at the Forensic Medicine Department in İstanbul and adjourned the trial until 11 September.
Ayşegül Doğan is the former Programs Coordinator for İMC TV, which was shut down in September 2016 with a decree-law following the coup attempt. Doğan’s conversations with Democratic Society Congress (DTK) executives as part of interviews and events that she attended as a journalist are presented as evidence against her. She is charged with “founding and managing a terrorist organization” and the prosecutor demands up to 22 and a half years in prison for Doğan. The second hearing of the trial took place at Diyarbakır 9th High Criminal Court today. While Doğan could not attend the hearing, her lawyers Mehmet Emin Aktar and Ahmet Özmen were present in the courtroom.
In the beginning of the hearing, the presiding judge asked whether Ayşegül Doğan was the daughter of former Democracy Party (DEP) MP Orhan Doğan and anchorwoman of a TV program at İMC TV. The lawyers confirmed that it was indeed Doğan. The judge said that the letter from İstanbul Forensic Medicine Institute states that the necessary analysis could not be made in order to identify Doğan as the individual from the tape recordings allegedly collected from the DTK building. The judge noted that Doğan must provide sample voice recordings in order to conduct relevant analyses for a possible match.
Lawyer Ahmet Özmen took the floor and stated that his client cannot attend the hearing today because she has to record her TV program at Tele-1 TV channel and presented the excuse petition written by Doğan to the court. Lawyer Mehmet Emin Aktar demanded the lacking documents to be completed for the case file.
Following the defense statements, the court announced their interim decisions. The court requested Doğan to provide two updated photos of herself and refer to the İstanbul Forensic Medicine Department to provide sample voice recordings there. The court decided that a forensic report should be prepared following a comparative analysis of Doğan’s voice recordings to determine whether it is indeed her speaking in the tapes that were allegedly recorded at the DTK building. The court adjourned the trial until September 11 and demanded all incomplete documents to be added to the file and necessary forensic reports to be completed until then.
