BIA Magazine, Turkey
June 19 2008

The Court Acquits The Agos Journalists

The new prosecutor in the Agos case says that the court verdicts can
be critiqued as well and both Agos journalists, Aris Nalcı and Sarkis
Seropyan, are acquitted.

Bia news center 19-06-2008 Erol ONDEROÄ~^LU

Today the Å~^iÅ~_li 2nd Court of First Instance acquitted
Sarkis Seropyan, the license holder for the Agos newspaper, an
Armenian/Turkish weekly, and Aris Nalcı, the editor of the same
newspaper, of the charge of "attempting to influence the judiciary."

Kemal Aytac, one of the defense lawyers, told the journalists in front
of Å~^iÅ~_li Justice Hall that "Actually, there should have not been
a case like this. How do we know this? The verdict says so. I hope
people will not have to go to the courts because of their ideas and
be acquitted. In past people died because of this."

The lawyers did not go in since they were protesting the court The
lawyers did not take part in today’s hearing since they were protesting
Metin Aydın and Hakkı Yalcınkaya for being biased.

Only some observers, Haluk Agabeyoglu, the human rights and labor
activists, among them, and the journalists were present at the final
hearing, as the accused journalists did not show up, either. The Human
Rights Watch Organization (HRW) representative Emma Sinclair-Webb
observed the hearing, too.

The court was in a more relaxed mood, the new prosecutor asked for
acquittal In the verdict hearing, the court was not as tense as it
was previously. Prosecutor Mucahit Ercan changed prosecutor Ä°sa
Dalgıc’s previous opinion demanding that the accused journalists be
sentenced under article 288 of the Penal Code.

Prosecutor Ercan pointed out that the accused journalist critiqued
in their editorial "Akıllı Tahta", written on November 9, 2007,
the law article under which they were sentenced, namely, article 301,
by the way of implication, that they were not trying to influence the
judiciary process, that considering the factors of the accusation,
the verdict of the court itself could be critiqued within the legal
framework as well, that the article, in its entirety, stayed within
the limits of the freedom of expression and critique. At the end,
he asked for the acquittal of the accused.

"The article was written for our Armenian citizens" Judge Yalcınkaya,
whose withdrawal from the trial process the defense lawyers had
demanded, decided, "The article should be defined as an editorial
piece written for our Armenian citizens rather than to influence the
judiciary process, since it could not have been written to influence
the judiciary, when viewed in its entirety, the accused should be
acquitted separately."

"They were tried, when the punishment was connected with the
"psychology of the people" They were sued for their article titled
"Akıllı Tahta" (The Smart Board), published on the November 9,
2007 issue of Agos, in which they critiqued the decision that was
reached regarding Hrant Dink’s Article 301 case.

The indictment had stated that the article itself was not criminal, but
it had become criminal because of the psychology of the Turkish people.

The lawyers had claimed that the judges Metin Aydın and Hakkı
Yalcınkaya could not be objective and brought a request of recusation
against them. (EO/EZO/TB)

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