ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A trial into the murder of prominent Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci is to begin in a Diyarbakir court on Wednesday, almost five years after his death.
Tahir Elci, a lawyer and chief of the Diyarbakir Bar Association was shot dead on November 28, 2015 while speaking to the press outside the city’s famed Four-Legged Minaret, the scene of a shootout between Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) affiliates and the police several days before.
Elci had called for peace between the two sides just minutes before he was killed.
The case had been ignored by Turkish authorities for years until an indictment was filed to Diyarbakir’s Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on March 26 and approved by a higher court about a week later.
“Had Tahir Elci lived today, he himself would act as the lawyer in this case,” the Tahir Elci Foundation for Human Rights, established by his former colleagues, said in a Monday video.
Three of four of the accused are police officers. The independent Bianet news agency reported on Tuesday that the officers could face charges of “causing death by culpable negligence” and be sentenced to up to six years in jail.
“We want justice for #TahirElci,” the Turkey-based Human Rights Association (IHD) tweeted on Tuesday.
Elci’s wife Turkan has said that she will represent her husband in the trial, in the first case of her legal career.
Before his assassination, Elci caused a stir after saying during a televised interview on October 15, 2015 that the PKK was not a terrorist organization, contrary to Ankara which has designated the PKK as a terror group.
As a result, Elci was accused of making propaganda for the PKK – a Kurdish armed group fighting for increased political and cultural rights of Kurds in Turkey for decades.
He was detained for several weeks and later released on probation while facing up to 7.5 years of imprisonment. He was killed one week after his release.
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