In the PKK trial in Hamburg, Kenan Ayaz’s defence lawyer has submitted an extensive motion to clarify the political nature of the proceedings and the prosecution’s indictment.
The trial against the Kurdish politician Kenan Ayaz continued at Hamburg Higher Regional Court on Wednesday. After Kenan Ayaz had filed the second motion for recusal against the judges on the 21st day of the trial last week, defence lawyer Antonia von der Behrens had presented a number of motions for evidence, which she was unable to finish reading out due to a lack of time. On yesterday’s trial day, she was able to submit a total of 53 motions with which she attacked the political nature of the proceedings and the prosecution’s indictment. She then applied for Kenan Ayaz to be released from custody.
In the defence’s extensive and fundamental motion, which resulted in the demand for Kenan Ayaz’s pre-trial detention to be lifted, it was again made a central theme that the proceedings were a political trial that was being conducted largely in the interests of Turkey. In order to prove the political nature of the case, the defence demanded that former Federal Public Prosecutor General Peter Frank be questioned in order to ask him whether the arrest warrant against Kenan Ayaz had been applied for out of political expediency and thus whether the proceedings had been ‘contaminated’ by Turkey’s interests.
In the application, the defence also attacked the conduct of the proceedings by the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court and criticised the fact that the court had in fact accepted the results of the police investigation without examining them. The public could only partially understand the statements in the motion, as it dealt with the part of the taking of evidence that had taken place behind closed doors in self-reading proceedings. In particular, the motion referred to the many text messages and telephone conversations, all of which had been introduced in the so-called self-reading procedure.
The defence again doubted that the identification of a ‘Kenan’ was actually Kenan Ayaz, and also questioned whether a ‘cadre’ with the rank of regional manager was using his own first name as an alias. There was no evidence of allegedly typical habits or tasks of regional or area leaders such as monitoring donations, organising demonstrations on site or staying overnight with known activists regarding the ‘Kenan’.
Biased translations
The defence also criticised how biased the various translators had been, for example the Turkish word ‘arkadaş’ or the Kurdish ‘heval’ had always been translated as ‘comrade’ instead of ‘friend’, although it should then be ‘yoldaş’ or ‘reheval’. The Kurdish word for laughter (ken) was also made into an abbreviation of Kenan’s name, or the Turkish word for 1000 (bin) into an abbreviation of the name Binevş. Often whole words were simply added. The defence stated that the LKA Bremen translator had not translated impartially, but had interpreted the communication to suit the purpose of the investigation.
The claim that Kenan Ayaz’s participation in the founding congress of KON-MED in Bergisch-Gladbach on 5 May 2019, his personal participation – and not the organisation of the participation of third parties – in the Dersim Festival in Frankfurt am Main on 24-25 May 2019 and in the funeral service of Ugur Şakar on 26 March 2019 were evidence of cadre activity seems downright ridiculous. A very large number of Kurds had taken part in all these events without being cadres.
The defence concluded the motion with the demand that an expert should independently examine all available material for exculpatory circumstances. The motion stated that the many text messages and phone calls in this trial against Kenan Ayaz and in other trials had previously only been examined to see whether anything allegedly incriminating could be found against a ‘Kenan’. Now, the defence demanded, all these files should be searched for exculpatory circumstances. In other words, evidence that the prosecution’s claim that Kenan Ayaz was responsible for the region was not true.
Protection of informants of the secret service
The defence filed a further motion attacking the secrecy of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Officer W. of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution had already testified as a witness. He had claimed that informants of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution had allegedly identified Kenan Ayaz as the regional leader for Hamburg. The defence then applied to have these informants heard as witnesses in court. The Ministry of the Interior did not want to allow this and prohibited the informant from testifying as a witness with a so-called barring order. Even if these people were to be heard audiovisually at another location, they could still be unmasked. The role of these informants for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution was highly valued: Their identification would be ‘detrimental to the welfare of the federal government or a state’. The defence demanded that the court take action against the blocking of the informants and requested that it should at least be possible to question these informants in writing in order to be able to defend Kenan Ayaz.
Motion to recuse rejected
Finally, the presiding judge announced in passing that the second motion for recusal against the judges had also been rejected. Other judges of the Higher Regional Court had ruled on this application. In contrast to the first rejection, however, the presiding judge did not read out this decision.
The reason for the application for recusal was that Judge Wende-Spohrs had shouted at both the defence and a trial observer during the court hearing on 12 March because they had complained about the poor acoustics in courtroom 288. The defence lawyer should ‘keep her mouth shut’ was obviously not enough to declare the judge biased. Another reason for the bias motion was that Wende-Spohrs had cut off Kenan Ayaz when he criticised the expert witness Seufert. Yesterday, the defence again raised the issue of the withdrawal of the right to speak and filed an appeal against the court’s decision to ban Kenan Ayaz from speaking.
Commemoration of the murder of Theophilos Georgiades in Cyprus
Cypriot lawyer Socrates Tziazas, who had come on behalf of Kenan Ayaz’s Cypriot defence lawyer, Efstathios C. Efstathiou, also took part in yesterday’s main hearing.
For the Cypriot trial participants and observers, 20 March was a special day of remembrance. Theophilos Georgiades was murdered in Cyprus 30 years ago. Georgiades was active in the Kurdish movement and his murder was most likely carried out on behalf of the Turkish secret service. The memorial also addressed the persecution of Kenan Ayaz and his extradition to Germany, presumably on Turkish orders. A wreath was laid on behalf of Kenan Ayaz at Theophilos Georgiades’ memorial.