Jailed Turkish Journalist, Novelist Ahmet Altan Calls Indictment About Journalists A ‘Judicial Porn’
(author known to editor)
Ahmet Altan has continued his court testimony by saying that “We were arrested because we criticised the AKP… (However) for me being a defendant in a trial like this and spending my life in jail is more honourable than being the prosecutor… There is no freedom of expression in this country except for the prosecutor’s lies… I don’t have any requests and your judgements don’t have anything to do with me. All judges will be judged by their own judgements.”
“They are being charged with the same accusations as those who picked up rifles and committed violence on the night of the coup,” said Tobias Garnett, a lawyer with P24, an organisation that supports independent journalism and represents a number of journalists, including the Altan brothers, told to the Guardian.
See the whole defense here: http://stockholmcf.org/journalist-novelist-ahmet-altan-calls-indictment-about-journalists-a-judicial-porn/
Renowned novelist Ahmet Altan accuses prosecutor in defense against coup charges
Renowned jailed journalist and novelist Ahmet Altan harshly slammed the prosecutor who prepared an indictment against him in a court hearing on June 22 as part of the alleged “media leg” of the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ), which is widely believed to have perpetrated the July 2016 failed coup.
“To put forward accusations that have no coherence whatsoever and are not based on any evidence is to ravish the law. Indeed, this prosecutor has made ravishing the law such a habit that our indictment has turned into pornography of the law,” Altan told the court in Istanbul in his defense
“The recklessness of the prosecutor who authored this untruthful and nonsensical indictment proves this has become a habit of the justice system,” he also said.
“There are said to be some men who directed this coup… There are said to be some men who knew these men… And we are said to know those men. I know it is very difficult to believe but this is what the indictment sets out in all those pages. Let me ask this: How can ‘knowing’ someone be accepted as the evidence of a crime? If you know a criminal does that make you a criminal, too?” he added.
While facing three aggravated life sentences for the charges, they also face an additional prison term of 15 years on the charge of “committing crimes on behalf of a terrorist organization without being a member.”
For the rest of the news see: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/renowned-novelist-ahmet-altan-accuses-prosecutor-in-defense-against-coup-charges.aspx?pageID=238&nID=114652&NewsCatID=509
