Turkey’s Supreme Appeals Court has ruled to uphold the acquittal of 19 defendants, including a former interior minister, in a trial involving the enforced disappearance or execution of 18 people in Turkey’s Southeast in the 1990s at the hands of a clandestine military organization known as JİTEM, citing a lack of “credible evidence,” the T24 news website reported.
JİTEM, the Gendarmerie Intelligence and Anti-terror Unit, has been accused of involvement in the torture, disappearance and execution of many Kurdish politicians and businesspeople during the 1990s, a period of bloody conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish militants.
In addition to former interior minister and police chief Mehmet Ağar, former special operations officer İbrahim Şahin and former military and intelligence officer Korkut Eken were also among the suspects in the case.
The 1st Criminal Chamber of the top court upheld the acquittals of the defendants, in line with two rulings from the Ankara 1st High Criminal Court, on the grounds that it detected no irregularities during the trial and found no credible evidence presented against the defendants proving that they committed the crimes of which they’re accused.
It said some pieces of evidence were based on hearsay and included contradictions and thus could not be considered credible.
The Ankara 1st High Criminal Court had ruled in December 2019 to acquit all 19 defendants who faced charges of premeditated murder in line with the activities of an armed criminal gang.
The 1st Criminal Chamber of the Ankara Regional Court, which acts as a local appeals court, ruled to overturn the acquittal of the suspects in 2021, ordering a retrial. Despite the appeals courts decision, the Ankara 1st High Criminal Court granted an acquittal to the suspects once again in late 2023.
In March a regional appeals court also upheld the acquittals of the 19 defendants, leading the case to be submitted to the Supreme Court of Appeals.
The court’s decision has come as a disappointment to the people who lost their loved ones in unsolved murders in Turkey’s restive southeast in the 1990s and have been seeking justice for years.
Many say that a culture of impunity dominates in Turkey, where public officials who have been involved in a crime or who have failed to carry out their duties face no legal action or punishment for their actions or negligence.