ELCI AND OTHERS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT
60
Security Court. Mrs Beştaş and Ms Ölmez stressed the matter more than
others. They insinuated that he should be killed.
438. Mr Güven also mentioned plans to kill the provincial gendarmerie
command's most senior officer.
3. Evidence of Abdülhakim Güven before the Diyarbakır State Security
Court on 1 June 1995
439. At a Diyarbakır State Security Court hearing on 1 June 1995,
Abdülhakim Güven appeared and the statement he had made to the
gendarmerie was read out to him. He confirmed its correctness. [Defence
counsel for the applicants repudiated his statements as being a self-serving
attempt to gain an acquittal and release.]
440. Mr Güven stated that he was the general representative of the PKK
in prison and used to attend the interviews which defence lawyers had with
their clients. These lawyers thus mostly saw PKK members.
441. He denied that he had been tried as being a member of the PKK.
An investigation against him was made, apparently concerning some written
material, but a decision not to proceed was taken.
442. Once the prison PKK members identified a lawyer as being
“patriotic”, a decision was taken to contact him, as had been the case with
Şinasi Tur.
[Defence counsel denounced these declarations as fictitious.]
4. Statements (all subsequently repudiated by the applicants) taken by
officers of the Diyarbakır provincial gendarmerie command
a) Tahir Elçi
(Undated statement which Mr Elçi was recorded as having refused to
sign)
443. Mr Elçi was recorded as stating that since his school days he had
had a circle of friends who had relations with the PKK. Names of PKK
members were cited. He maintained PKK activities in the urban area. He
had become a PKK sympathiser in Cizre in 1987. He was apprehended in
1989 and detained at the Diyarbakır E-type prison in 1990 where he
received PKK ideological and theoretical training. As a student he organised
forums, boycotts, protests and propaganda slogans.
444. Mr Elçi introduced Mesut Beştaş to Abdülhakim Güven, whom he
had known for a long time and who liaised with Mr Elçi's brother. A PKK
member (Beriwan) was in charge of the town of Silopi, Cizre, and
frequently went to Mr Elçi's house. He had acted as a courier for Mr Güven
once the latter was in prison, taking notes and the like, hidden in address
books and diaries. He had helped a member, code name Firat, to transport