Media's 'poshu trial' postponed to March

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Friends of Cihan Kırmızıgül, who has been in prison for more than 22 months, protested their friend’s case by gathering outside of the court house. Photo by Hürriyet Daily News by Emrah Gürel

The lawyer for a 22-year-old student who was implicated on terrorism charges for wearing a poshu scarf declared yesterday that he was withdrawing from the trial because all of his requests had been rejected by the court.

“The court is not even conducting the research it is supposed to carry out by itself. A pre-conceived verdict for [student Cihan Kırmızıgül’s] imprisonment has already been given. The judicial mechanism is not functioning,” the suspect’s lawyer, Sayyit Tanrıverdi, told the Hürriyet Daily News.

Tanrıverdi made a number of requests to the court, demanding disks containing records in the court’s possession, the examination of local camera records and phone records from the Telecommunications Authority (TİB), all of which were rejected by the court on the grounds that they contributed nothing new to the trial.

“They turned down our requests, but the findings that would come out of an examination of cameras, disks and TİB records will prove Cihan’s innocence. The police officers who detained Cihan are not being questioned; Cihan was not even the subject of an investigation before his detention. The court’s claims are self-contradictory,” Tanrıverdi said, adding that he would not be able to continue participating in the trial under such circumstances.

Kırmızıgül was taken into custody in Istanbul’s Kağıthane district for wearing a poshu scarf at a bus station near a grocery store that was attacked with Molotov cocktails by alleged members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who were also wearing the same garment.

Kırmızıgül was detained in February 2010 and is facing up to 48 years in prison. His next hearing is set to take place on March 23.

The chief justice also issued a statement in court, responding to the use of the term “poshu trial,” a phrase coined by the media to describe the case. Wearing a poshu does not constitute a crime according to the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), he said in court.