A case involving three police officers suspected in the 2015 death of lawyer and Diyarbakir Bar Association President Tahir Elçi concluded yesterday (June 13), resulting in the acquittal of all three suspects.
Tahir Elçi was killed in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on November 28, 2015, when he was hit by a stray bullet after a firefight broke out following a press conference he had joined.
Yesterday’s court decision acquitted police officers Mesut Sevgi, Fuat Tan, and Sinan Tabur of ‘negligence leading to death’.
For years, investigators have attempted to determine the source of the bullet that killed Elçi. An investigation carried out by British forensic experts Forensic Architecture concluded that one of the three police officers who were defendants in the case fired the lethal shot.
Prior to the announcement, lawyers gathered in front of the Diyarbakır courthouse to demonstrate.
Speaking to reporters after the acquittal decision was announced, Elçi’s brother Mehmet alleged that footage showing the killing was intentionally erased by authorities and that the courts had been pursuing acquittal of the officers from the beginning.
Prior to his 2015 death, Elçi served as a lawyer in a case at the European Court of Human Rights in which Turkey was accused of massacring Kurdish civilians. Just one month before his death, Elçi became embroiled in controversy when he said in a live interview with CNN Türk that the banned Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) was “not a terrorist group, but rather an armed political group.”
Elçi was briefly detained following the incident and received a travel ban but died before he could be sentenced.
Written/translated for Medyascope by Leo Kendrick
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