In the §129b proceedings against Kenan Ayaz before the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg, the defence has filed an application for recusal. Ayaz has lost confidence in the impartiality of the judges.
The Hamburg Higher Regional Court held another main hearing day in the PKK trial against Kenan Ayaz on Tuesday, 6 February. The defence objected to the three judges as biased. Kenan Ayaz had lost confidence in the impartiality of the judges because they wanted to keep the attempts by Turkish President Erdoǧan to exert political influence on the trial out of the proceedings.
The day began with the court rejecting numerous motions by the defence, including those relating to the peace negotiations and Turkey’s invasions of northern Iraq and Rojava in violation of international law. The court had sufficient knowledge of these events through the expert witness Dr Seufert. A request to present two newspaper articles on the electoral fraud in the 2009 local elections in Agirî (tr. Aǧrı), which had cost the DTP candidate a majority, was also rejected, even though Kenan Ayaz had been arrested during the protests against this electoral fraud. The court said that it was already aware ‘that the defendant belongs to an ethnic group that is subject to numerous restrictions in the exercise of its cultural identity and political agency’. With this wording of the ‘restrictions’, the court showed how little it understood the extent of the repression to which the Kurds were and are exposed by Turkey.
Finally, the application of 10 January 2024 to read out a newspaper article from the FAZ of 19 November 2023, in which Erdoğanindisputably comments on the PKK proceedings in Hamburg and thus on the case of Kenan Ayaz, was also rejected. The article in question states: “The visit to the German capital “opened a new chapter in our profound relations”, Erdoğan said. He was pleased about a criminal trial at the Higher Regional Court in Hamburg against a suspected functionary of the Kurdish terrorist group PKK. The man had been arrested in Cyprus at the instigation of the federal prosecutor’s office and extradited to Germany.”
The court stated that this article exclusively expressed an assessment and the author’s dissatisfaction with the status of the PKK proceedings and could therefore not be a motion for evidence. This was the trigger for the defence to challenge the three judges as biased after a requested break on behalf of Kenan Ayaz.
Rejection of the senate due to concerns of bias
The defence argued in support of the so-called motion for recusal that the rejection of the motion to read out the article from the FAZ with Erdoǧan’s statement made clear the court’s refusal to deal with any possible influence on the extradition of Kenan Ayaz and the proceedings in Hamburg on the part of the Turkish state. The mistrust in the impartiality and impartiality of the judges justified by Kenan Ayaz is therefore plausible. Another instance at the Hamburg Higher Regional Court will now decide whether the judges must be replaced or whether they may continue the proceedings. However, the trial dates will continue as planned until a decision is reached.
In the detailed grounds for the motion, the defence pointed out that this was the second time that the motion to read the article had been rejected and that even the Federal Public Prosecutor General had twice agreed to it being read. On the other hand, the defence criticised the fact that, on the one hand, a large number of articles from the Turkish press were read out in the self-reading procedure and that even the expert witness Seufert had confirmed that there was no freedom of the press in Turkey and, on the other hand, an article from the FAZ, which could be assumed to comply with journalistic standards, was not to be read out.
It was further stated that Erdoǧan’s statement about the proceedings against Kenan Ayaz was important because it showed that the criminal proceedings were in Turkey’s objective interest and because this statement would indicate a possible threat to Kenan Ayaz after his release from prison. The defence pointed out that the expert witness Seufert had said that the Turkish secret service (MIT) also operated abroad and also mentioned the murders abroad of Theofilos Georgiadis in Cyprus in 1994 or the murders in Paris of Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez in 2013, in which the MIT was allegedly involved. The application also referred to an alleged attempt at intimidation of the Cypriot defence of Kenan Ayaz. Reference is made here to the explosive incident on 22 December 2023, on which a colleague of Cypriot defence lawyer Efstathios Efstathiou, who works for him, had his laptop stolen from his hotel room. This was done in such a way that it could not be ruled out that Turkey was involved in intelligence activities.
For the trial observers, the court’s attitude also culminated in the refusal to read out the article from the FAZ. For many days of the main trial, the court has rejected all of the defence’s motions and has shown no willingness whatsoever, apart from questioning the expert witness Seufert, to get involved in the circumstances in Turkey or to deal with the personal fate of Kenan Ayaz and certainly not to acknowledge the political influence exerted by Erdoǧan. This also reveals an attitude towards Kenan Ayaz: an ignorance of his personal history, his struggle and the torture and imprisonment he suffered, and an ignorance of the dangers that threaten Kenan Ayaz once the trial is over. At the same time, this shows an ignorance of the Kurdish movement and its struggle, especially in Turkey.
The trial day ended with further motions from the defence. Among other things, it demanded that the informants of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, who allegedly provided information on Kenan Ayaz, be heard as witnesses.
The defence team also issued a press release on 7 February 2024 regarding this motion to reject.
Further trial dates, 9.30 a.m. (any deviations can be found in the respective date announcement), Hamburg Higher Regional Court (Sievekingplatz 3), Room 237:
Wednesday, 14.2.2024
Friday, 16 February 2024, from 1 p.m.
Monday, 26 February 2024
Monday, 11 March 2024
Tuesday, 12 March 2024
Wednesday, 20 March 2024
Thursday, 21 March 2024, from 1 p.m.
The website kenanwatch.org provides information in Greek, English and German about the trial and the protests in Cyprus and Germany.
Kenan Ayaz is happy to receive mail. Even if you don’t speak Kurdish or Turkish, write to him, as the mail can also be translated. Be sure to write ‘Ayas’ so that the letters are delivered to him.
Kenan Ayas
Hamburg remand centre
Holstenglacis 3
20355 Hamburg
You can donate to:
Rote Hilfe e.V. OG Hamburg
Keyword: Free Kenan
IBAN: DE06200100200084610203