RSF condemns the court’s decision to uphold the sentencing of five officers for manslaughter in the assassination of photographer Metin Göktepe On 20 January, a higher court upheld a seven and a half year prison sentence for manslaughter against five police officers accused of murdering photographer Metin Göktepe. On 6 May 1999, when the sentence […]
RSF condemns the court’s decision to uphold the sentencing of five officers for manslaughter in the assassination of photographer Metin Göktepe
On 20 January, a higher court upheld a seven and a half year prison sentence for manslaughter against five police officers accused of murdering photographer Metin Göktepe. On 6 May 1999, when the sentence was first pronouned, the civil litigants appealed the judgement, asserting that the police officers were guilty of murder, not manslaughter. Furthermore, the court repealed the sentencing of a sixth officer who was also accused of manslaughter, deciding that he should instead be tried solely for “abuse of power”, which carries a lesser sentence of one to three years in prison. The litigants’ lawyers declared their intent to refer the matter to the European Human Rights Court.
Metin Göktepe, a reporter with the far-left daily Evrensel, was beaten to death by police officers in an Istanbul sports complex on 8 January 1996, while covering the funeral of two prisoners killed during the suppression of a demonstration in an Istanbul prison.
Reporters sans frontières condemns the court’s decision. The organisation considers the officers to be guilty of murder and feels that their sentence of seven and a half years is insufficient. Furthermore, the organisation is shocked that the State Council refused to press charges against two directors of the Istanbul police, the former Chief of Directors of Istanbul Police and his Assistant Commissioner. In effect, they attempted to conceal the truth about the death of the Evrensel photographer.
RSF recalls that no inquiry was ever opened into the assassination of twenty-one other journalists, including Ahmet Taner Kislali, who were killed in 1999. In two cases – the murders of journalist Ugur Mumcu in 1993 and Abdi Ipekçi in 1979 – the trials have still not been resolved.
