ISTANBUL - Lawyers of PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan applied to Bursa Chief Public Prosecutor's Office and İmralı Prison Directorate to meet with their clients.

 

The lawyers of PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan and detainees Ömer Hayri Konar, Hamili Yıldırım and Veysi Aktaş, who were held under severe isolation conditions in İmralı F Type High Security Closed Prison, made a new application to meet with their clients. Lawyers Faik Özgür Erol, Raziye Öztürk, Rezan Sarıca and Cengiz Yürekli applied to both the Bursa Chief Public Prosecutor's Office and the İmralı Prison Directorate with a request to meet with their clients.

 

OBSTACLE TO MEETINGS

 

 The Office of the Chief Prosecutor imposed a 6-month ban on lawyers on September 23, 2020, on the grounds of the "Road Map" prepared by Öcalan in addition to his defense submitted to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2009. The lawyers, whose applications for interviews were left inconclusive based on this decision, learned that Öcalan was given a new disciplinary sanction last January. However, despite the expiry of this ban on March 23, no positive or negative response is given to the applications made by the lawyers.

 

Rezan Sarıca and Nevroz Uysal, one of Öcalan's lawyers, last met their clients on May 2-22, June 12-18 and August 7, 2019, after 8 years.

 Öcalan was granted the right to speak by phone for the first time on April 27, 2020. Öcalan was made to talk to his brother Mehmet Öcalan on the phone again on March 25, due to the growing public concerns about him. Mehmet Öcalan announced that this meeting was interrupted.