Medine Mamedoğlu
Diyarbakır - The ninth hearing of the case filed against journalist Hakkı Boltan on charges of “insulting the President” and “insulting a public official” was held at the Diyarbakır 12th Criminal Court of First Instance.
Hakkı Boltan and his lawyer Resul Tamur did not attend the hearing. At the hearing, where the lawyer submitted an excuse, the panel of judges added to the case file the prosecutor’s opinion that was submitted during the interim hearing. The opinion requested that Boltan be sentenced. The court granted time for the main defense statement. Although a ruling was expected at the next hearing following the opinion, the trial was postponed to April 14 at 11:50 a.m.
What had happened?
In the indictment prepared by the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in 2019, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and then-Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu are listed as complainants.
The charges brought against journalist Hakkı Boltan are based on a statement he made in Kurdish about Rohat Aktaş, the former managing editor of Azadiya Welat newspaper, who lost his life during the curfews declared in Cizre on February 11, 2016. The expressions Boltan used in a statement he made at the time on behalf of the Free Journalists’ Association (ÖGC), of which he was then co-chair and which was later shut down by decree law, were cited in the indictment as evidence for the charges of “insulting the President” and “insulting a public official due to their official capacity.”
In its decision dated June 29, 2021, the court sentenced Boltan to 1 year, 2 months and 17 days in prison for insulting the President, and to 10 months in prison for insulting former Prime Minister Davutoğlu. The court did not suspend the sentences.
Upon an application by Boltan’s lawyer, the 2nd Penal Chamber of the Diyarbakır Regional Court of Justice overturned the lower court’s decision on October 27, 2022. The appeals court found that issuing two separate convictions constituted “excessive sentencing.” Following the decision, a new trial began at the 12th Criminal Court of First Instance.
