- The third hearing in the trial of five police officers accused of assaulting and detaining lawyer Murat Çelik during a police intervention at the Saturday Mothers' 954th weekly vigil began 2.5 hours late due to a change of judge.
- Çelik, the complainant, said the police officer he accused of torturing him had since been promoted to chief superintendent. Defense lawyers, meanwhile, argued that a 1.5-hour portion of the audio recording from the previous hearing conducted via SEGBİS, Turkey's judicial video conferencing system, was missing and requested that the court seek the missing recordings from the relevant authorities.
Rabia Çetin
The third hearing in the trial of five police officers accused of assaulting lawyer Murat Çelik and detaining him with his hands cuffed behind his back during the Saturday Mothers' 954th weekly vigil in Istanbul's Galatasaray Square on July 8, 2023, was held before the Istanbul 76th Criminal Court of First Instance.
The hearing, which had been scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m., started 2.5 hours late at 12:30 p.m. after the presiding judge was replaced and no permanent successor had yet been appointed, requiring the courthouse to assign a temporary judge. The hearing was also moved to the 55th Criminal Court of First Instance courtroom because of a technical problem with the SEGBİS judicial video conferencing system.
The defendants—commissioners Ali H. and İlhan Ç., and police officers Burak Mehmet Ç., Fatih A., and Zahir K., all of whom were serving in the Istanbul Police Department's Security Branch at the time—are charged with "exceeding the limits of the use of force" and "intentional injury." None of the officers attended the hearing.
Observers at the hearing included representatives of the Paris Bar Association, the Lyon Bar Association, the Defense Without Borders solidarity network, the International Observatory for Lawyers in Danger, European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights, Legal Centre Lesvos, the Human Rights Association (İHD), the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV), Amnesty International, the Istanbul Bar Association, and the Kartal Lawyers Association. Uniformed and plainclothes police officers were also present in the courtroom.
'Police officer who tortured me was promoted to chief superintendent'
At the previous hearing on Feb. 18, Commissioner Ali H. and police officers Burak Mehmet Ç., Fatih A., and Zahir K. were present in court. The statement of defendant Commissioner İlhan Ç., who had been reassigned to the eastern province of Erzurum, was taken separately on commission by the Erzurum 9th Criminal Court of First Instance.
Complainant Murat Çelik said the commissioner he accused of torturing him had since been promoted to the rank of chief superintendent following his transfer to Erzurum.
1.5 hours of SEGBİS recording missing
According to an expert report submitted to the court between hearings, approximately 1.5 hours of audio were missing from the 2-hour, 18-minute SEGBİS recording of the previous hearing.
Çelik: "Doctors documented 33 signs of torture on my body"
After the court completed the identity verification process, Çelik addressed the court.
"I began practicing law in the 1990s, during the period when village burnings, torture, and enforced disappearances in custody were at their peak. I have been fighting for human rights since the day I became a lawyer. Today is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Three years ago, I was detained during a Saturday Mothers vigil and subjected to torture. As documented in a report prepared by the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV), 33 signs of torture were identified on my body," he said.
Çelik: "The police officer proudly described how he tortured me"
Çelik said that four of the defendant officers had attended the previous hearing and that he had identified the two officers who tortured him.
"The police officer who directly tortured me was transferred to Erzurum and promoted to chief superintendent. During the hearing, he proudly described what he had done to me. Three years have passed, and I am still receiving medical treatment. I continue to undergo treatment because of the torture inflicted directly by the two commissioners," he said.
Çelik added that all 31 people who participated in the demonstration that day were subjected to torture while being detained.
"Despite two Constitutional Court rulings, detentions at Saturday Mothers vigils have been carried out with torture. There were 31 of us detained at the protest where I was arrested, and all 31 were subjected to torture. The torture and ill-treatment continued for nine hours. While I was in police custody, an officer told me, 'Whatever was done to you wasn't enough,'" he said.
Çelik: "I received no treatment at the hospital"
Çelik told the court that he did not receive adequate medical care after his detention.
"On the first day of my detention, I was at risk of suffering a brain hemorrhage while I was at the hospital, but no intervention was made. I waited more than three hours for a CT scan at Ümraniye Training and Research Hospital. The doctor said he could not treat me. Today's hearing also started 2.5 hours late. That, too, is part of the torture," he said.
Ballıkaya: "The offense was misclassified"
Çelik's lawyer, Several Ballıkaya, said the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) had documented that Çelik was subjected to torture.
"The forensic medical report recorded the findings but described the injuries as 'treatable with simple medical intervention.' However, Mr. Çelik has been receiving treatment for three years. That wording reflects the prosecution's legal characterization, but the offense has been misclassified. This case should have been brought as torture," Ballıkaya said.
Ballıkaya added that the police officers claimed in their statements that "Murat Çelik threw himself to the ground and the incident occurred while they were trying to protect him."
"The officers accused of torture are still serving in their positions. Murat Çelik was tortured during the Saturday Mothers vigil because he said that using handcuffs behind a detainee's back was unlawful," she said.
Referring to the missing audio from the previous hearing, Ballıkaya asked the court to request information from the Justice Ministry's Information Technologies Department.
"If these recordings were deliberately destroyed, we request that the person responsible be identified, that the matter become the subject of a separate investigation, and that those responsible be punished if identified. If our requests are not granted, torture will effectively be exonerated in this prosecution," she said.
Ünal: "The case should be transferred to the High Criminal Court"
Lawyer Sedef Ünal argued that the court should declare a lack of jurisdiction and transfer the case to the High Criminal Court.
"In this case, you can rule that you lack jurisdiction and refer the file to the High Criminal Court. Video footage clearly shows that Murat Çelik identified himself as a lawyer and that the police officers were aware of this. Under the Attorneyship Law, the officers exceeded their authority by detaining lawyer Murat Çelik without authorization from the Justice Ministry. Because he was clearly subjected to torture during the detention, this case falls within the jurisdiction of the High Criminal Court," Ünal said.
Speaking on behalf of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, lawyer İlknur Alcan said, "This trial concerns the torture of a lawyer. The fact that lawyers have had to follow today's hearing while standing is itself a violation of the right to a fair trial. We request a larger courtroom. We also request that the missing audio recording be located."
Another of Çelik's lawyers, İbrahim Ergün, said, "We ask the court to send a request to the Justice Ministry's Information Technology Center in Ankara to recover the missing recordings. Today is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. We will prevail over both torture and those who commit it."
After hearing the lawyers' requests, the prosecutor asked the court to seek assistance from the Gendarmerie Criminal Laboratory to determine what happened to the missing SEGBİS recordings.
The judge ordered that the Justice Ministry's Information Technologies Department be asked to clarify the whereabouts of the missing audio and video recordings, and that the relevant authorities preserve, transcribe, and examine the recordings from the previous hearing. The court ruled that the complainants' remaining requests would be considered after the recordings had been reviewed.
The hearing was adjourned until Oct. 9 at 10:30 a.m.
