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Çeber’s guards face life sentence without parole
The prosecutor demanded varying sentences for 18 people, out of a total of 60 public servants who are defendants in the trial over the incident, and the acquittal of 42 defendants.
In the trial at the Bakırköy 14th High Criminal Court, public prosecutor Muammer Çalık noted that the police officers tried to detain Çeber, Özgür Karakaya and Aysu Baykal, who were distributing a left-wing journal to passers-by on the street, because there was a warrant issued for their arrest. Çeber and his friends were taken into custody by police in the Sarıyer district of İstanbul in 2008.
Çeber died due to cerebral hemorrhaging after sustaining head injuries while in custody.
Çeber and his friends were taken into custody in İstanbul in early October in 2008 for reportedly selling the leftist magazine Yürüyüş. They were later arrested and sent to Metris Prison, where they were allegedly subjected to torture and the disproportionate use of force by policemen and prison guards.
Çeber was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead there after suffering a brain hemorrhage as a result of head trauma. Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin later apologized on behalf of the state and the elected administration for Çeber’s death. The apology was a first in Turkish history.
Building his argument at the trial, the prosecutor said that Çeber and his friends resisted arrest and that several police officers were also injured in the incident in Sarıyer. The prosecutor also indicated that there was no evidence that the police used disproportionate force as video recordings were taken during the official fingerprinting and photography procedures. But he also admitted that there were no camera recordings of the search rooms at the police station, and Karakaya was seen in the camera recordings as having difficulty walking while coming out of the search room, but he argued that the victim had an operation 15 days prior to the incident. It was also revealed that physician Yemliha Söylemez, who signed the medical reports attesting to the detainees’ good health, was not present at the jailhouse on the day of the incident and apparently never saw the detainees. The prosecutor demanded four to 10 years for Söylemez for forgery.
Police officers Aliye Uçar, Mehmet Pek and Abdülmuttalip Bozyel are being charged with the crime of “malicious injury,” as they exceeded the limits in their use of force, the prosecutor noted. He demanded six months to one-and-a-half years’ imprisonment each for officers Uçar, Nevzat Kayım and Mehmet Polat for “injuring” some of the detainees. For Pek and Bozyel, the prosecutor demanded between four-and-a-half and nine years’ imprisonment each.
For prison guard Nihat Kızılkaya, the prosecutor demanded four to 15 years for “torture” and “misconduct in office.” For Yusuf Gayır, Cuma Kaçar, Turan Günaydın, Muharrem Çelik and Erdoğan Çoşardereli, who were prison guards, he demanded one to three years’ imprisonment for “misconduct.”
Defendants Selahattin Apaydın and Sami Ergazi, who are prison guards, are being charged with causing death as a result of torture and may face life in prison with no possibility of parole.
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