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TRIAL OF GERMAN-TURKISH AUTHOR SLAMMED AS 'REVENGE'
by Volker Hage ; Daniel Steinvorth
Spiegel Online International
December 8, 2010 Wednesday 8:45 AM GMT+1
Germany
After living in exile in Germany for 19 years, German-Turkish writer
Dogan Akhanli flew to Istanbul to visit his dying father, but was
arrested at the airport. The Turkish state has a score to settle with
the author, who is accused of involvement in a robbery and a murder.
Akhanli's supporters claim the trial, which begins Wednesday,
is politically motivated and a judicial disgrace.;
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,733447,00.html
The Tekirdag prison stands like a fortress in the barren, empty hills
of Thrace, the European part of Turkey. The facility, a two-hour drive
west of Istanbul, is one of the most modern and well-guarded prisons
in the country. The prisoners incarcerated there are usually members of
the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) or were involved in organized
crime. Tekirdag is a place where enemies of the state are locked up.
Turkish prosecutors consider the man currently occupying cell AIT
77 in the prison's Block A to also be a dangerous criminal. They
claim that Dogan Akhanli, a 53-year-old German-Turkish author,
attempted to "violently undermine the constitutional order," and
was also responsible for a murder and an attempted robbery. If the
prosecutors prevail in court, the Cologne-based author could receive
a life sentence.
In reality, the Akhanli case is a judicial disgrace. Even by Turkish
standards, the evidence against a prominent prisoner has rarely been as
thin and the political motives for an arrest so obvious. German friends
of the writer, including the Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass,
the legendary undercover journalist Günter Wallraff and leading Green
Party politician Claudia Roth, say the case is motivated by "revenge
on the part of certain Turkish legal circles."
The trial begins on Wednesday in the Besiktas jury court in Istanbul.
Wallraff, who is highly respected in Turkey due to his famous book on
Turkish guest workers in Germany, "Ganz unten" ("Lowest of the Low"),
plans to attend. "I feel very much needed there, in a personal way,"
he says. "I hope that the court recognizes that there is no basis
whatsoever for a conviction."
'I Expected It'
On Aug. 10, 2010, Akhanli returned to Turkey after 19 years in German
exile. His father was on his deathbed. Akhanli was aware of the risk
he was taking, knowing that he is seen as a traitor to his country in
Turkey. He was arrested before he could even leave the airport. "I
expected it," he said. "But I also expected to be released after a
short time and not to face the possibility of being locked up for
life. I thought my country was freer and more democratic today."
Akhanli's story begins in the turbulent 1980s. As a left-wing
political activist, he joined the illegal Revolutionary Communist
Party of Turkey (TDKP) after the 1980 military coup and became an
underground fighter against the ruling junta. He was arrested in 1985,
convicted of membership in a terrorist organization and tortured at
the notorious military prison in Istanbul.
The regime released Akhanli after three years, but it kept him under
surveillance as a potential enemy of the state. In 1991, he and his
wife and two children fled to Germany, where he was granted political
asylum. He began writing in Cologne, where he penned his trilogy
"Kayip Denizler" ("The Disappearance of the Sea"), in which he takes
an unsparing look at his country's history.
In the trilogy, Akhanli deals at length with the question of why
violence, torture and despotism are still a reality in Turkey today.
The author is convinced that the reasons lie in Turkey's denial
and repression of the Armenian genocide. In the third volume of the
trilogy, the only one that has been translated into German so far,
"Kiyamet Gunu Yargiclari" ("The Judges of the Last Judgment"), Akhanli
describes the first genocide of the 20th century. In doing so, he
commits an egregious violation of a Turkish taboo.
Confession Withdrawn
The author wasn't exactly surprised when friends in Turkey told him
that his name was on a Turkish wanted list. Akhanli is suspected of
involvement in an armed robbery that resulted in the death of a person.
The robbery in question was committed at an Istanbul currency exchange
office in October 1989. A man was killed in the incident, but the
culprits got away and were never caught. The case was closed after
only three weeks.
Investigators reopened the case three years later, in 1992. Although
the robbery had never been treated as a politically motivated crime
in the past, members of the Turkish counterterrorism police were now
involved. They subpoenaed two principal prosecution witnesses. One
of them, a leftist activist named Hamza Kopal, testified that he and
Akhanli had planned and committed the 1989 crime together.
Kopal later said that the only reason he had given the police
Akhanli's name was that he knew that his friend was safely in exile
in Germany. He also withdrew his confession a few months later, saying
that he had made it under duress because the police had tortured him.
Kopal and the other principal prosecution witness were acquitted of
all charges in 1994, but Akhanli remained a suspect.
For the Turkish counterterrorism police, the robbery was not a
criminal offence but a politically motivated one. The investigators
claim that Akhanli committed the robbery as a leading member of an
obscure terrorist group called THKP-YKB-HKG, and that the money was
to be used to finance a revolutionary overthrow of the government. The
officials completely ignored the fact that this organization, according
to the Turkish Interior Ministry, was only founded in 1991, or two
years after the armed robbery.
'A Talent for Pinning Unsolved Crimes on Leftists'
For Akhanli's attorney Haydar Erol, it is obvious that his client is
being set up. "Unfortunately, our police have a talent for pinning
unsolved crimes mainly on leftists. This is practical, because it
enables them to get rid of an unresolved case and a political enemy
at the same time."
But in the Akhanli case, the two principal prosecution witnesses
weren't the only ones to withdraw their statements. The sons of the
victims, who were in the currency exchange office at the time of the
crime, also said later that they had not identified the culprits.
Akhanli was certainly not one of them, one of the two sons said shortly
after the author's arrest in August. Instead, he said, he hoped that
the authorities would finally find his father's "real murderers."
According to Erol, the prosecution's case now contains just a single
piece of evidence against his client: the statement of the witness
Kopal, which was allegedly extracted through torture.
The prosecution's evidence is so thin that it would probably not even
lead to a trial in any country of the European Union, which Turkey
wants to join. But it's a different story in Istanbul. "Unfortunately,
this isn't about solving a crime," says Akhanli's attorney. "It's
about a show of power by revanchist circles in Turkey."
A look at the jurists involved in the case illustrates what the
attorney is talking about. They include the judges Seref Akcay
and Oktay Acar, who one observer of the case characterizes as
"uncompromising steel-helmet Kemalists." Both men attracted attention
at the beginning of the year when they acquitted dozens of Turkish
officers who had allegedly been involved in a plan to overthrow the
government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
'I Feel Like Josef K.'
Prosecutor Hüseyin Ayar is also refusing to acknowledge the witnesses'
withdrawal of their earlier testimony. "The coup leaders and their
supporters want to demonstrate that they are still in control of the
courts and can convict people at will," says Halil Ibrahim Özcan of
the Turkish section of PEN, the worldwide association of writers.
"I feel like Kafka's fictional character Josef K.," Akhanli wrote to
spiegel in early October, from his cell in Tekirdag. "If I wasn't
in danger of being sentenced to life in prison, this charge would
actually be an amusing piece of literature."
Two months later, Akhanli has lost his last shred of humor. All he
feels today, he told his lawyer Erol, is anger and sadness. On Nov.
27, Erol brought his client a devastating piece of news: His father,
whom he had come to Turkey to visit, had died.
Akhanli was unable to attend the funeral. His petition for temporary
release was denied.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
From: A. Papazian
by Volker Hage ; Daniel Steinvorth
Spiegel Online International
December 8, 2010 Wednesday 8:45 AM GMT+1
Germany
After living in exile in Germany for 19 years, German-Turkish writer
Dogan Akhanli flew to Istanbul to visit his dying father, but was
arrested at the airport. The Turkish state has a score to settle with
the author, who is accused of involvement in a robbery and a murder.
Akhanli's supporters claim the trial, which begins Wednesday,
is politically motivated and a judicial disgrace.;
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,733447,00.html
The Tekirdag prison stands like a fortress in the barren, empty hills
of Thrace, the European part of Turkey. The facility, a two-hour drive
west of Istanbul, is one of the most modern and well-guarded prisons
in the country. The prisoners incarcerated there are usually members of
the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) or were involved in organized
crime. Tekirdag is a place where enemies of the state are locked up.
Turkish prosecutors consider the man currently occupying cell AIT
77 in the prison's Block A to also be a dangerous criminal. They
claim that Dogan Akhanli, a 53-year-old German-Turkish author,
attempted to "violently undermine the constitutional order," and
was also responsible for a murder and an attempted robbery. If the
prosecutors prevail in court, the Cologne-based author could receive
a life sentence.
In reality, the Akhanli case is a judicial disgrace. Even by Turkish
standards, the evidence against a prominent prisoner has rarely been as
thin and the political motives for an arrest so obvious. German friends
of the writer, including the Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass,
the legendary undercover journalist Günter Wallraff and leading Green
Party politician Claudia Roth, say the case is motivated by "revenge
on the part of certain Turkish legal circles."
The trial begins on Wednesday in the Besiktas jury court in Istanbul.
Wallraff, who is highly respected in Turkey due to his famous book on
Turkish guest workers in Germany, "Ganz unten" ("Lowest of the Low"),
plans to attend. "I feel very much needed there, in a personal way,"
he says. "I hope that the court recognizes that there is no basis
whatsoever for a conviction."
'I Expected It'
On Aug. 10, 2010, Akhanli returned to Turkey after 19 years in German
exile. His father was on his deathbed. Akhanli was aware of the risk
he was taking, knowing that he is seen as a traitor to his country in
Turkey. He was arrested before he could even leave the airport. "I
expected it," he said. "But I also expected to be released after a
short time and not to face the possibility of being locked up for
life. I thought my country was freer and more democratic today."
Akhanli's story begins in the turbulent 1980s. As a left-wing
political activist, he joined the illegal Revolutionary Communist
Party of Turkey (TDKP) after the 1980 military coup and became an
underground fighter against the ruling junta. He was arrested in 1985,
convicted of membership in a terrorist organization and tortured at
the notorious military prison in Istanbul.
The regime released Akhanli after three years, but it kept him under
surveillance as a potential enemy of the state. In 1991, he and his
wife and two children fled to Germany, where he was granted political
asylum. He began writing in Cologne, where he penned his trilogy
"Kayip Denizler" ("The Disappearance of the Sea"), in which he takes
an unsparing look at his country's history.
In the trilogy, Akhanli deals at length with the question of why
violence, torture and despotism are still a reality in Turkey today.
The author is convinced that the reasons lie in Turkey's denial
and repression of the Armenian genocide. In the third volume of the
trilogy, the only one that has been translated into German so far,
"Kiyamet Gunu Yargiclari" ("The Judges of the Last Judgment"), Akhanli
describes the first genocide of the 20th century. In doing so, he
commits an egregious violation of a Turkish taboo.
Confession Withdrawn
The author wasn't exactly surprised when friends in Turkey told him
that his name was on a Turkish wanted list. Akhanli is suspected of
involvement in an armed robbery that resulted in the death of a person.
The robbery in question was committed at an Istanbul currency exchange
office in October 1989. A man was killed in the incident, but the
culprits got away and were never caught. The case was closed after
only three weeks.
Investigators reopened the case three years later, in 1992. Although
the robbery had never been treated as a politically motivated crime
in the past, members of the Turkish counterterrorism police were now
involved. They subpoenaed two principal prosecution witnesses. One
of them, a leftist activist named Hamza Kopal, testified that he and
Akhanli had planned and committed the 1989 crime together.
Kopal later said that the only reason he had given the police
Akhanli's name was that he knew that his friend was safely in exile
in Germany. He also withdrew his confession a few months later, saying
that he had made it under duress because the police had tortured him.
Kopal and the other principal prosecution witness were acquitted of
all charges in 1994, but Akhanli remained a suspect.
For the Turkish counterterrorism police, the robbery was not a
criminal offence but a politically motivated one. The investigators
claim that Akhanli committed the robbery as a leading member of an
obscure terrorist group called THKP-YKB-HKG, and that the money was
to be used to finance a revolutionary overthrow of the government. The
officials completely ignored the fact that this organization, according
to the Turkish Interior Ministry, was only founded in 1991, or two
years after the armed robbery.
'A Talent for Pinning Unsolved Crimes on Leftists'
For Akhanli's attorney Haydar Erol, it is obvious that his client is
being set up. "Unfortunately, our police have a talent for pinning
unsolved crimes mainly on leftists. This is practical, because it
enables them to get rid of an unresolved case and a political enemy
at the same time."
But in the Akhanli case, the two principal prosecution witnesses
weren't the only ones to withdraw their statements. The sons of the
victims, who were in the currency exchange office at the time of the
crime, also said later that they had not identified the culprits.
Akhanli was certainly not one of them, one of the two sons said shortly
after the author's arrest in August. Instead, he said, he hoped that
the authorities would finally find his father's "real murderers."
According to Erol, the prosecution's case now contains just a single
piece of evidence against his client: the statement of the witness
Kopal, which was allegedly extracted through torture.
The prosecution's evidence is so thin that it would probably not even
lead to a trial in any country of the European Union, which Turkey
wants to join. But it's a different story in Istanbul. "Unfortunately,
this isn't about solving a crime," says Akhanli's attorney. "It's
about a show of power by revanchist circles in Turkey."
A look at the jurists involved in the case illustrates what the
attorney is talking about. They include the judges Seref Akcay
and Oktay Acar, who one observer of the case characterizes as
"uncompromising steel-helmet Kemalists." Both men attracted attention
at the beginning of the year when they acquitted dozens of Turkish
officers who had allegedly been involved in a plan to overthrow the
government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
'I Feel Like Josef K.'
Prosecutor Hüseyin Ayar is also refusing to acknowledge the witnesses'
withdrawal of their earlier testimony. "The coup leaders and their
supporters want to demonstrate that they are still in control of the
courts and can convict people at will," says Halil Ibrahim Özcan of
the Turkish section of PEN, the worldwide association of writers.
"I feel like Kafka's fictional character Josef K.," Akhanli wrote to
spiegel in early October, from his cell in Tekirdag. "If I wasn't
in danger of being sentenced to life in prison, this charge would
actually be an amusing piece of literature."
Two months later, Akhanli has lost his last shred of humor. All he
feels today, he told his lawyer Erol, is anger and sadness. On Nov.
27, Erol brought his client a devastating piece of news: His father,
whom he had come to Turkey to visit, had died.
Akhanli was unable to attend the funeral. His petition for temporary
release was denied.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
From: A. Papazian