DİYARBAKIR- In the final hearing of the trial against journalist Hatice Şahin, the court sentenced Şahin to 6 years and 3 months in prison.

 

The 8th hearing of the lawsuit filed against Hatice Şahin, an employee of Yeni Yaşam Newspaper, who was detained and released on October 18, 2018, as part of the investigation launched against the Democratic Society Congress (DTK), was held at the 9th High Criminal Court in Diyarbakır. While Hatice did not appear in court, her lawyer Resul Temur was present.

 

In the opinion presented by the prosecution at the hearing, it was stated that Şahin operated on behalf of 'a terrorist organisation' and coordinated pro-organisational activities. The prosecution claimed that among the documents obtained as a result of the search of Şahin's house, she went back and forth between Istanbul and Diyarbakir to operate on behalf of the DTK. The prosecution noted that the anonymous witness statements, flight tickets, and physical tracking records were evaluated together and demanded that Şahin be punished for "being a member of a terrorist organisation" with a sentence  up to 15 years.

 

Lawyer Resul Temur pointed out that they did not accept the opinion of the prosecution and that there were statements by two anonymous witnesses named "Firar" and "Ezel" on the file. Resul said, “In order to give body to the statements of the anonymous witnesses, the client is also taken into custody by the police in an operation. Documents that are claimed to be documents consisting of writing and manuscripts have been included in the file and the client is requested to be punished for being a member of the organisation. We present to the court two precedent decisions given by the regional Court of Appeals. What we emphasize both in this file and in the general file is that we demand that the statements of anonymous witnesses be included in the file. To demand this, we need to determine who made these statement and how. Our clients were acquitted as a result of the hearing. The inclusion of the anonymous witness statement in the file is for the control of abstract facts such as place and time.”

 

Resul, who said that his client is a journalist, stated that the police carried out an operation on his client's workplace as if it was her residence. Referring to the fact that the documents seized at the workplace are considered as “organizational” documents, Resul said that it has been claimed that his client was operating within the scope of DTK activities. Persons who carry out administrative activities within the DTK and provide coordination have been punished. These are all secondary sides for the client. The secret witness statement was tried to be embodied with these. It violates the article 9 of the witness protection law. We demand the acquittal of the client considering all these issues.”

 

After a short break, the court board sentenced Hatice to 6 years and 3 months in prison on the grounds that she had committed the crime of "being a member of a terrorist organisation”.  In addition, the court decided to continue the judicial measure control applied to Şahin.