Amed, : Lawyers in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast (Northern Kurdistan) said
yesterday that they would bring a lawsuit against the head of the country’s
powerful armed forces over comments he made on a 2005 bombing.
Two soldiers and an army informer have been
jailed for their role in the bombing of a bookshop in the eastern town of
Semdinli. Critics have said the case shows Turkey’s powerful military is ready
to act outside the law.
In a rare news conference on Thursday, General
Yasar Buyukanit called the Semdinli affair “a legal disaster” which he said had
involved an attempt to defame Turkey’s armed forces.
He appeared to be referring to a decision by a
local public prosecutor to open a case against Buyukanit for allegedly
organising an illegal group to plan the Semdinli bombing.
Buyukanit angrily denied those claims and the
prosecutor later lost his job.
“The remarks by the chief of the General Staff
(on Semdinli) were aimed at influencing the legal process,” the head of the
Diyarbakir Bar Association Sezgin Tanrikulu said in a statement, announcing the
decision to take legal action against Buyukanit.
The two jailed soldiers are appealing against their sentences. The army
informer, a former Kurdish rebel, is still being tried on separate charges of
helping and supporting an illegal organisation.
One person was killed in the November 2005
attack on the Semdinli bookstore, which sparked riots across the Kurdish region.
Critics said the security forces may have
planned the attack to stir unrest in southeast Turkey and possibly to derail
Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union.
The EU criticised the sacking of the prosecutor
who wanted to probe Buyukanit and has demanded a full and transparent
investigation of what happened in Semdinli.
