AKI, Italy
March 8 2007
SWITZERLAND: VERDICT EXPECTED FRIDAY IN GENOCIDE TRIAL AGAINST TURK
Lausanne, 8 March (AKI) – The trial of Turkish politician Dogu
Perincek – who made comments in Switzerland denying the 1915 mass
killings of Armenians was genocide – continued in a Lausanne court on
Thursday, with statements from the defence and the prosecution. The
trial, which is due to conclude on Friday, is a test case for Swiss
anti-racism legislation. Prosecutor Eric Cottieri has called for a
six-month jail sentence for 65-year-old Perincek if he is convicted.
On the first day of the trial on Tuesday, Perincek, leader of the
nationalist Turkish Workers’ Party, reiterated remarks he made in a
2005 public speech in Lausanne describing the 1915 mass killings of
Armenians as "an international lie". Perincek told the court what
occurred were "killings on both sides," but that the Ottoman Turks
did not perpetrate genocide against the Armenian people.
The great powers of the day, especially Britain, had fuelled the
genocide theory and such "progaganda" is being used in present times
by the United States against Turkey, Perincek said. In statements
made earlier this week to the Swiss newspaper Le Matin, Perinck said
he had many World War I era documents from various countries that he
would use in court to prove that what happened in Turkey in 1915 was
not genocide.
An estimated 150 supporters of Perincek held a silent protest in
Lausanne on Tuesday to coincide with the start of the trial, the
Swissinfo website reported.
The Turkey daily Hurriyet newspaper reported that a large contingent
of Perincek’s supporters were barred from the courtroom and Turkish
journalists were also denied access to the trial on the grounds that
written accreditation had not been received beforehand.
Under the Swiss penal code any act of denying, belittling or
justifying genocide is a violation of the country’s anti-racism
legislation. Experts say the presiding judge at the district court in
Lausanne will have to negotiate some tricky legal waters. Twelve
Turks prosecuted in Switzerland on similar charges in 2001 were
acquitted. Although the Swiss parliament recognises the World War I
killings of the Armenians as genocide, neither the government nor the
Senate does.
Moreover, the case is set to test the already shaky relations between
Bern and Ankara.
In 2005, Turkey criticised the Swiss authorities’ decision to
investigate Perincek and later cancelled an official trip to Turkey
by then economics minister, Joseph Deiss.
The anti-racism legislation is itself a topic of debate in
Switzerland. Justice minister Christoph Blocher, leader of the
right-wing Swiss Popular Party, opposes the law, arguing it is
incompatible with freedom of expression. In a controversial move,
Blocher met his Turkish counterpart Cemil Cicek in Bern at the
weekend.
Armenians say 1.5 million of their people were killed in a genocide
by Ottoman Turks during World War I, either through systematic
massacres or through starvation. More than a dozen countries, various
international bodies and many Western historians agree that it was
genocide.
Turkey disputes the World War I mass killings of Armenians as
genocide. It acknowledges that many Armenians died, but says the
figure was below one million.