One of the most Kafkaesque trials in Turkey’s history has again not come to an end. Having been acquitted for four times due to the explosion that occurred at Spice Bazaar in 1998, Pınar Selek was on trial once again.
The court ruled for the continuation of the red notice and arrest warrant against Selek. The court rejected Selek’s request to be heard in a court in France and adjourned the hearing to 29 September.
Acquitted four times but the judgments of acquittal reversed each time, academician and sociologist Pınar Selek is put on trial for the fifth time with the same accusation related to an event 25 years ago.
She was tried, and acquitted and the acquittals were reversed four times in relation to the Spice Bazaar explosion in 1998.
On 21 June 2022, the Court of Cassation’s Penal Chamber overturned the fourth acquittal of Pınar Selek and sent back the case file for Selek to be sentenced on Article 125 of the old Turkish Penal Code which stipulates aggravated life imprisonment.
On 6 January 2023, the Istanbul 15th High Criminal Court issued a writ to the Ministry of Justice so that an international arrest warrant can be issued against Pınar Selek.
Trial for the fifth time
Pınar Selek’s trial was held today for the fifth time at the Istanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan.
The international delegation coming to İstanbul to observe the hearing of the new case said in their statement that this is a trial “which all started because she rejected to give the names of the persons she talked to for sociological research in 1998.”
Selek followed her trial in France, at the Human Rights Association in Paris, but dozens of activists, academicians, and friends from Turkey, France, and many other countries were in the courthouse to be in solidarity with her and to observe the hearing.
The presiding judge opened the hearing by summarizing the case file and stating that they’ve issued a writ to France so that Pınar Selek’s statement can be taken via rogatory letters. Recalling the international arrest warrant issued against Pınar Selek, the presiding judge stated: “It is up to the French Ministry of Justice to decide whether they will return Selek or not.”
The judge also added: “Through interpreters, we will also give the floor to lawyers from bar associations in France.”
Taking the floor after Pınar Selek’s lawyers, the prosecutor presented his opinion requesting the court to abide by the Court of Cassation’s judgment.
The prosecutor requested the court to reject the request of Selek’s lawyers for Selek’s statement to be taken via rogatory letters. The prosecutor also requested for the court to wait for the execution of the international arrest warrant issued against Pınar Selek.
Rejecting the request of Pınar Selek’s lawyers for Selek’s statement to be taken via rogatory letters, the court decided to wait for the execution of the arrest warrant issued against Pınar Selek and adjourned the trial until 29 September 2023.
‘You never get used to injustice’
In an interview with AFP in the southern French city of Nice where she teaches sociology, Selek said: “You never get used to injustice”.
Although the successive trials, acquittals and retrials started well before President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power, she said they “are an illustration of both the continuity of the repressive regime, and the new tools of the regime”.
Selek, now 51 and known for her critical studies of the Kurdish conflict in Turkey and her work with street children, was first arrested in 1998 and accused of belonging to the PKK, a Kurdish militant organisation considered by Turkey and its western allies — including the United States and the European Union — to be a terrorist organisation.
She was then accused of bombing a spice market popular among tourists in Istanbul, a charge she was informed of only “when I was already in my prison cell”.
But then a witness, who had testified that she had been part of the plot, withdrew his statement. An expert report concluded that the explosion had been an accident. Selek was freed in 2000 with the court citing lack of evidence, but the trial was not over.
The judicial process against her continued. She was acquitted in 2006, then again in 2008 and again in 2011. But each time, the supreme court cancelled the acquittals. In 2012 a court in Istanbul decided on a retrial and, a year later, sentenced her to life imprisonment. The supreme court overturned that verdict, too, and ordered another retrial which ended with yet another acquittal, in 2014. Then, in June of last year, the supreme court intervened again, annulling all previous acquittals.
She moved to France and pursued her sociology research, first in the eastern city of Strasbourg and then in Nice in the south, and obtained the French nationality in 2017. Selek has not been able to come to her homeland for more than ten years. She is an academician at the Cote d’Azur University in Nice.
You can learn more about Pınar Selek’s trials here.
Sources: France24, MSLA