- The 16th hearing of the case in which Figen Yüksekdağ and seven former HDP deputies are being tried was held.
- The hearing, which the defendants did not attend, was postponed to June 3. The court requested that the arrest warrants issued for Ertuğrul Kürkçü and Saadet Becerikli be reconsidered.
Medine Mamedoğlu
The 16th hearing of the case in which former Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Figen Yüksekdağ and seven former HDP deputies are being tried was held at the Silvan Criminal Court of First Instance, but it was postponed again.
A case had been filed against Yüksekdağ and former HDP deputies İdris Baluken, Çağlar Demirel, Altan Tan, Ahmet Yıldırım, Ertuğrul Kürkçü, Mehmet Ali Aslan and Saadet Becerikli on the charges of “preventing the performance of duty” and “insulting a public official.”
None of the defendants attended the hearing, for which the lawyers submitted excuse petitions. The court decided that the arrest warrants issued for defendants Ertuğrul Kürkçü and Saadet Becerikli should be reconsidered and postponed the hearing to June 3 at 10:30 a.m.
In the case that has been ongoing since 2021, arrest warrants for Kürkçü and Becerikli were issued in 2024. Because the arrest warrants have not been executed, the case has not yet been concluded.
Within the scope of the case, many politicians have given statements so far. In the statement she submitted to the file in 2024, Figen Yüksekdağ did not accept the accusations. Yüksekdağ said that soldiers pointed guns at them during their visit to Silvan and that they were threatened with death.
The lawyers, however, have not made a defense in the file for a long time. It is not known when the trial process will conclude.
What happened?
In the indictment prepared by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, Osman Gündüz, the then Deputy District Police Chief of Silvan, and some police officers, as well as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the then Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, and the then Interior Minister Efkan Ala, were listed as complainants.
In the indictment, the alleged statements made by the deputies who went to Silvan district of Diyarbakır, where a curfew had been declared on Nov. 12, 2015, during the police intervention that took place during the visit, Figen Yüksekdağ’s press statement, and footage related to the scuffle that occurred were presented as evidence.
The Diyarbakır 8th Criminal Court of First Instance, which accepted the indictment, sent the file to the Silvan Criminal Court of First Instance with a decision of lack of jurisdiction, on the grounds that the crime had been committed in Silvan.
During the trial process, the court decided to suspend the trial of Hüda Kaya and Feleknas Uca, who had been elected deputies again, and to send their files to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM).
In addition, the file was sent in 2020 to the Ankara 33rd High Criminal Court, citing Decree Law No. 694 issued during the State of Emergency (KHK) and published in the Official Gazette.
The jurisdiction dispute between the courts was resolved by the Court of Cassation in 2021, and it was decided that the case would be heard at the Silvan Criminal Court of First Instance.
