Top court rules ‘rights violation’ in killing of Gezi protester
ANKARA
The Constitutional Court has unanimously ruled that Ali İsmail Korkmaz, who was beaten to death by police officers and civilians in the 2013 Gezi Park protests, was “subjected to torture.”
Upon the individual application of Korkmaz’s family, the court ordered a retrial of the accused police officer H.E., who was sentenced to seven months and 15 days for “deliberately injuring,” in order to eliminate the consequences of “violating the material and procedural aspects of the prohibition against torture.”
The court also decided that the family should be paid 67,500 Turkish Liras ($3,750) in compensation.
“Law enforcement officers must respect human dignity under all circumstances,” the court said in the decision.
H.E. was acquitted as well as another defendant Ş.K., earlier.
Officers M.S. and Y.A., who were both convicted to 10 years and 10 months in prison, are serving their terms that were handed down by a Central Anatolian province of Kayseri court after the case was re-evaluated.
This court also overturned a release decision given to E.H., another convict in the murder, ruling that his conviction was wrong and that he should have been charged with being the “perpetrator of the act” and not an “aide to the act.” He was later given three years and four months in prison.
The family also said earlier that the probe over the violation of the right to life and the prosecution were not sufficient and that if the Constitutional Court did not impose heavier sentences on the convicts, they would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Korkmaz was beaten to death on June 2, 2013, by a group of officers and civilians in the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir during the 2013 Gezi Park protests. He died on July 10, 2013, after spending 38 days in a coma.
