GOV’T TO PASS BILL ON STATE SECRETS TO PREVENT EVIDENCE TAMPERING
Today’s Zaman
15 October 2008, Wednesday
Turkey
Erhan Tuncel is escorted from prison to a BeÅ~_iktaÅ~_ courthouse by
gendarmarie officers.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government
has rolled up its sleeves to pass legislation on what constitutes
a state secret in order to hinder the obstruction of evidence by a
former police informant in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink.
A hearing in Dink’s murder case took place on Monday at the Ä°stanbul
Criminal Court. A 90-page dossier about Erhan Tuncel, one of the
key suspects in the Dink murder and an ex-police informant who was
fired but nevertheless maintained his relationship with the police
department, was destroyed on the grounds that it included state
secrets. However, a sample of the dossier was included in the Dink
murder case. Lawyers of the Dink family asked the court to examine
the dossier about Tuncel. They said no law currently exists on state
secrets, so no actions which constitute an offense can be included
in the definition of a "state secret."
AK Party Ä°stanbul deputies Ä°brahim Yigit and AyÅ~_enur Bahcekapılı,
who attended Monday’s trial, said no criminal offenses could
take shelter behind the state secret shield, as they called on the
government to enact a law on state secrets as soon as possible. State
secret laws are used to exclude illegal acts from being investigated
on the pretext that they are a state secret.
Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Å~^ahin, who demanded the enactment
of a law on state secrets as part of the Third National Program,
a government road map for EU reforms, said the law on state secrets
became more important in the course of the Dink case.
The Dink trial has so far revealed dubious connections between
the suspects and the police. Dink family lawyers have frequently
brought allegations that police attempted to obscure evidence. Two
gendarmerie officers are currently standing trial for having ignored
tip-offs about the plot to kill Dink, who was shot dead outside his
Agos newspaper in Ä°stanbul in January 2007.
AK Party group deputy leader Nihat Ergun said everyone should help
illuminate the planners behind the Dink murder, noting that his party
was ready to help discover the masterminds behind this murder.
A draft bill on state secrets defines what constitutes a state secret
as follows: A state secret includes information and documents which
need to remain secret and not be revealed because their disclosure
may give harm to the state’s foreign relations, national defense and
security or have the potential to endanger the constitutional order
and the state’s foreign relations. Information and documents which
do not constitute a state secret but have the potential to damage
the country’s economic interests, intelligence, military services,
administrative and judicial investigations will be labeled confidential
information and documents by the relevant authorities and be treated
as such. This definition prevents any acts of offense to escape
investigation through the label of a state secret.
According to the draft bill, documents and information that fall under
the definition of a state secret and that are demanded by courts will
not be sent to the courts; however, these documents and information
will not be used against the relevant person in the case. Other
confidential documents and information that do not fall under the
definition of a state secret will be sent to courts, if demanded.
–Boundary_(ID_EAvu0ZAOQgIDghhwa7Ue3g)- –
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress