A Turkish court ruled on Tuesday (Jan. 26) that the government was
negligent in its duty to protect three Christians who were tortured and
killed in 2007 and ordered it to pay damages to the victims’ families.
The Malatya Administrative Court ruled that, nearly nine years ago, the
Interior Ministry and the Malatya Governor’s Office ignored reliable
intelligence that Turkish nationalists were targeting the three
Christians days prior to the April 2007 killings.
Five young men with alleged links to Turkish nationalists killed three
Christians on April 18, 2007, in the office of the Zirve Publishing
House in Malatya in southeastern Turkey. Ugur Yüksel, 32, and Necati
Aydin, 36, both Turkish converts from Islam, and Tilmann Geske, 45, a
German national, were bound, interrogated about their Christian
activities and then mutilated and killed with knives, according to court
evidence.
According to several Christians close to the victims, one or more of
those accused of the killings cultivated relationships with the three
Christians, one even going so far as to pose as a new convert to the
Christian faith.
The court also ordered the Interior Ministry to pay the families close to 1 million Turkish lira ($333,980) in damages.
Susanne Geske, Tilmann’s widow, and her three children were awarded
$105,000 for emotional distress and $5,500 for physical harm. The
remainder of the damages were awarded to Aydin’s wife and Yüksel’s
father.
Geske said Wednesday that the concept of a monetary award for the death
of her husband and her children’s father is lost on her, as no amount
of money will bring him back or fill their loss.
“Four-hundred thousand lira for someone being killed is baffling,
funny,” she said. “And anyway, although the money is welcome, we’re not
yet believing we will see the money.”
Geske said government appeals to the court-ordered award, if filed,
could take years to settle. After taxes, civil fees and lawyer’s fees
are assigned, the amount her family receives could be greatly reduced.
The Geske family filed its civil case with others in 2008, around the
same time criminal proceedings began against the five men accused in the
killing. The civil ruling offers some resolution, but the criminal case
grinds on with little hope of resolution.
Although police arrested the five suspects – Salih Gurler, Cuma
Ozdemir, Abuzer Yildirim, Hamit Ceker and Emre Gunaydin – almost
immediately after the crime was reported, prosecuting them has been
problematic from the start. The judges have been changed at least twice,
and the prosecutors have been changed four times, causing significant
delays.
At times, subpoenaed witnesses have simply refused to show up in court
to testify without legitimate reason, and without being punished later
for contempt of court.
Most significant in delays was the attempt to explore links between the
killings and a larger alleged attempt by the Turkish military to
subvert the Justice and Development Party-led government. In 2009, the
murder case was linked to the Ergenekon file, concerning a
suspected cabal plotting against the government. As a result of this, a
host of new witnesses were called into court, including a colonel in the
gendarmerie and three army officers.
Especially galling to families of the victims, the five suspects in the
trial were released on bail on March 10, 2014 under a new reform law
that reduced the allowable period of pretrial detention from 10 years to
five. Under public pressure, authorities required them to wear
electronic monitoring devices, but the release caused extreme distress
among families and friends of the victims.
The suspects had previously threatened family members of the victims.
The wife of a Christian witness of the killings suffered a nervous
breakdown after the March release and was hospitalized until she
recovered, her husband told Morning Star News.
In the most recent criminal court hearing that took place earlier this
month, on Jan. 5, Geske voiced her frustration about the length of time
the court was taking in coming to a verdict. Today she said she thinks
the civil verdict will have no impact on the criminal trial.
“I don’t think one thing has to do with the other,” she said.
The next hearing is set for March 1.
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Courtesy: Morning Star News
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