PKK Trial No Laughing Matter

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>

PKK Trial No Laughing Matter

By Rita O'Reilly

     A political show trial is serious business, as you will
know. Nowhere more so than Hamburg, Germany, where three Kurdish
political prisoners are on trial on charges of organising PKK
units in Western Europe.
     The prosecution claims the three are indirectly linked to an
attack some years ago on a man in Bremen. The injured man was
subsequently imprisoned on drugs charges but has now emerged as a
key witness to the claim that the PKK was responsible for the
attack.
     Since its opening sessions in March, the trial has been busy
showing itself to be a farce. Witness after witness has refused
to say what the prosecution and judges want them to, despite
repeated courtroom interrogation and oblique but timely
references to their insecure status as `auslanders' in Germany.
Even the trial translation has been an issue, with one of the
first translators exposed by defence lawyers as a Turkish secret
service agent.
     As things have got worse for the prosecution, the six trial
judges have stepped in to instil their own sense of sobriety into
the process. In July, the lead judge demanded that the Kurdish
defendants stand up when witnesses are being sworn in. On August
6, when one of the defendants, Azime Yilmaz explained why they
wouldn't do this, the judge interrupted her to tell the public
gallery he did not want to hear any clapping or slogans at the
end of her statement. A German woman who dared to laugh at this
was sentenced to a day in jail.
     Then, on August 13 the judge read a police statement
accusing one of the defence lawyers of using a hand signal to
initiate shouting from the public gallery the previous week.
Funnily enough, the lawyer in question was the only one who had
tried to defend the woman who laughed and trial observers say he
is the best of the six defence lawyers in the case.
     As the farce continues, so too do attempts to extradite the
Kurdish political representative, Kani Yilmaz to the German
trial. His defence lawyers have lodged a final appeal with the
House of Lords to prevent his extradition from British to German
injustice.
     And the motive behind these trial and tribulations? Both
Britain and Germany have been keen to keep their military and
economic links with Turkey safe from the political and human
rights demands of the Kurdish people. Such is the state of
justice, Euro style.

(Source: An Phoblacht/Republican News - Thursday, August 22, 1996)

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