KurdistanObserver.com
Turkish Court Acquits 4 Policemen in Slaying Kurdish Boy and Father
The Associated Press
April 19, 2007
ANKARA, Turkey: A court acquitted four Turkish policemen Wednesday of charges
related to the 2005 killing of a Kurdish boy and his father, the state-run
news agency reported.
The court did not immediately release its reasoning for the acquittal.
The security forces had said they were pursuing Kurdish rebels, and shot
12-year-old Ugur Kaymaz and his father, Ahmet, in an exchange of gunfire,
Anatolia news agency said.
The victims' family denied having any links with rebels, and said the boy and
his father had been unarmed when they were killed outside their home in
Kiziltepe, a town in the predominantly Kurdish southeastern province of Mardin,
Anatolia said.
The verdict was likely to draw criticism from human rights groups, which had
regarded the trial as a test of whether Turkey was able to hold police more
accountable for their actions. Turkey is a candidate to join the European
Union, which has demanded it improve its human rights record.
The trial was held in Eskisehir, 1,220 kilometers (750 miles) west of Mardin,
after a court there ruled that holding a trial in the Kaymazs' home region
could be dangerous, due to strong emotions after the shooting.
Some 400 Kurdish protesters from the
southeast (Northern Kurdistan) had driven all the way to Eskisehir to try and
attend the trial. Police had set up road blocks at entrances to the city to
prevent protesters and called in armored personnel carriers and reinforcements
from neighboring provinces.
Summary executions by Turkish security forces were common in the early 1990s
in Turkey, at the height of battles between security forces and Kurdish
rebels.
