CHP slams decisions made in Ergenekon

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

The decision to bar arrested defendants in the Ergenekon trial from attending hearings shows there is no longer a true sense of justice present in the court case, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy chairman Bülent Tezcan said during a press conference held at CHP headquarters yesterday.

The CHP has repeatedly said that Silivri is a kind of “concentration camp,” Tezcan said. “Yesterday’s decision shows that lawless implementations will continue. In the Silivri concentration camp they are practicing a method of invasion courts. That decision will go down in history as a black mark representing the lawlessness of the 21st century,” Tezcan said.

During an afternoon hearing for the ongoing Ergenekon trisfendants asked for permission to speak on the conditions of the trial, the court’s attitude and the methods used in the courtroom.

Court Board Chief Hasan Hüseyin Özese denied the defendants, who included Mustafa Balbay, Tuncay Özkan, Erkan Önsel and Doğu Perinçek, permission to speak and ordered the defendants leave the courtroom.

Özese then barred them from attending the next 16 hearings of the case.

Tezcan said defendants in the Ergenekon trial are faced with a judicial system that does not tolerate them from the get-go, adding that this intolerance directly destroyed any sense of fair justice.