TURKEY: Mysterious Clerical ‘Error’ Delays Murder Trial
25 March 08
Court clerks fail to forward lawyers’ request to replace ‘biased’ judges.
The fourth trial hearing last week against the murderers of three Christians in southeast Turkey was postponed for another month after court clerks failed to file a request to replace judges accused of bias.
Plaintiff lawyers’ official demand to replace the presiding bench of judges had been filed on March 1, but when the Malatya Third Criminal Court convened yesterday it was confirmed that the request still had not been forwarded to the higher court in Diyarbakir, which was designated to rule on it.
Plaintiff lawyers had demanded a new set of judges at the previous hearing on February 25, listing repeated instances of bias and partiality that they declared were obstructing justice in the high-profile murder case.
As required by Turkish court procedures, the plaintiffs then filed their written complaint within the legal deadline of seven days, to be sent from the state prosecutor’s office of Izmir’s 10th Criminal Court to Diyarbakir’s Criminal Court for official review. But the Diyarbakir court has yet to receive the complaint.
According to a report published in Malatya Haber newspaper, the lawyers’ written complaint was faxed from Izmir on March 3 to the Malatya criminal court, rather than to the Diyarbakir court designated to review it. Even then, only the first page of the complaint was faxed, not the complete document.
Dubbed the missing fax comedy by Sabah newspaper, the failure of the Izmir court staff to forward the complaint to the higher court in Diyarbakir forced the Malatya tribunal to postpone the hearing for another month, until April 14.
In doing so, the presiding judges in Malatya issued an accusation of “criminal offense” against court clerks of the state prosecutor’s office in Izmir, declaring that their ineptitude in processing the legal complaint “within a reasonable time” had brought a “negative effect” on the case.
Since the trial opened last November, only one of the five murder suspects and two accused “accomplices” have testified in court.
- Pray that God’s Will will be done in this case.
- Pray for the families of those who were martyred who are likely to be going through stress as a result of the recent events with this court case.