ISTANBUL – Daily News with wires
The long-running trial for the murder of a trade-union head in 1980 was ended Wednesday due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
The murdered man’s family said it would apply to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming the case had been inadequately investigated and improperly brought to an end because the state is protecting the main suspect, Ünal Osmanağaoğlu, who manages a business in a state-run national park.
“Now we are going to the European Court of Human Rights. For years I felt uncomfortable when this option was mentioned. I thought a person should not be obliged to make a complaint against her country,” Nilgün Soydan, the daughter of murder victim Kemal Türkler, told the private news channel NTV on Wednesday. “I was a child who was raised with a love for my country. But today I hate my country and curse that I was born here.”
Soydan, who was 19 years old when Türkler was killed, had identified Osmanağaoğlu as one of the murderers of her father, the former head of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions, or DİSK.
After the court issued its decision Wednesday, Rasim Öz, the lawyer for Türkler’s family, blamed Judge Ali Asker Kazak for bringing the case to an end, the Doğan News Agency reported. “I will make you pay. Will you be able to sleep comfortably tonight?” Öz asked Kazak, the agency reported. Kazak replied, “Yes, I will,” and told law enforcement officers to clear the courtroom. Soydan meanwhile turned toward Osmanağaoğlu and yelled, “You are my father’s murderer.”
Süleyman Çelebi, the current head of DİSK, said Wednesday that the murderers of his predecessor were known and that the union would continue to pursue justice.
The Supreme Court of Appeals in June overruled a local court’s previous decision to acquit Osmanağaoğlu and concluded that he was guilty in Türkler’s murder.
The union chief was assaulted in front of his home in Istanbul’s Merter neighborhood July 22, 1980. His wife, Sabahat, and his daughter Nilgün ran to the window after they heard gunshots and saw Türkler lying in a pool of blood and some people running away from the scene. Soydan said she identified Osmanağaoğlu at the scene.
Türkler’s murder was considered a significant event in bringing Turkey toward the Sept. 12, 1980, military coup.
The conviction of two other murder suspects, Abdülsamet Karakuş and Aydın Eryılmaz, did not end the debate over who had participated in the murder. The list of potential suspects included Osmanağaoğlu, who was convicted in the 1978 murder of seven university students who were members of the Workers’ Party, or TİP.
In 1996, the Bakırköy Chief Prosecutor’s Office opened a case against Osmanağaoğlu accusing him of politically motivated murder with the aim of making the public rise up against the government. A local court found him not guilty, saying that Osmanağaoğlu, who had confessed to the alleged crimes, had testified under torture. The court also said Türkler’s daughter’s testimony identifying Osmanağaoğlu at the murder scene should not be accepted since so much time had passed since the incident.
The Supreme Court of Appeals overruled the local court’s decision and sent the file back, saying Osmanağaoğlu was at the murder scene. When the local court insisted on its decision, the file came to the general council of the Supreme Court of Appeals, and the high court overruled the decision one more time. The local court made the decision to end the case based on the expiration of the statute of limitations.