'No withdrawal' of Mavi Marmara cases: NGO

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

Members of the İHH stage a demonstration outside the court in Istanbul. AA photo

The head of the Turkish NGO Humanitarian Relief Foundation (İHH) said yesterday that it would "never give up" on the Mavi Marmara cases, the cases opened against Israeli soldiers accused of killing nine people in a raid on Turkish flotilla Mavi Marmara in 2010.

“Israeli soldiers think we will abandon these cases, but our decision is to complete this process in any case, make courts issue an arrest warrant for the Israeli soldiers and judge the Israeli authorities who are responsible for this incident. We will never give up on these cases,” Bülent Yıldırım told a crowd in front of an Istanbul court before the fifth trial of the case.

Former Chief of Staff Gaby Ashkenazi, former Navy Chief Eliezer Marom, former Military Intelligence head Amos Yadlin and former Air Force Intelligence Chief Avishai Levy are the Israelis being tried in absentia. The 144-page indictment is seeking multiple life sentences totaling over 18,000 years for each of the defendants. Turkey and Israel have come “close” to reaching a deal on compensation for victims of the raid after talks in Jerusalem earlier this month. It is still not clear whether the cases will be dropped eventually.

Yıldırım also said any normalization with Israel would mean treason to the Palestinian cause.