Lawyer Calls Turkish Christians' Trial a "Scandal"
Evidence still absent in case for "insulting Turkishness and Islam"
By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
SILIVRI, TURKEY
(ANS) -- After
three prosecution witnesses testified they didn't even know two
Christians on trial for "insulting Turkishness and Islam," a defense
lawyer called the trial a "scandal."
A story by Compass
Direct News reported that speaking after a recent hearing in the
drawn-out trial, defense attorney Haydar Polat said the case's initial
acceptance by a state prosecutor in northwestern Turkey was based only
on a written accusation from the local gendarmerie headquarters
unaccompanied by any documentation.
"It's
a scandal," Compass reported Polat said. "It was a plot, a planned one,
but a very unsuccessful plot, as there is no evidence."
Turkish
Christians Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal were arrested in October 2006.
After a two-day investigation, they were charged with allegedly
slandering Turkishness and Islam while talking about their faith with
three young men in Silivri; an hour's drive west of Istanbul.
Compass
said even the three prosecution witnesses who appeared to testify at
the Oct. 15 hearing failed to produce any evidence against Tastan and
Topal, who could be jailed for up to two years if convicted on three
separate charges.
The
three witnesses, all employed as office personnel for various court
departments in Istanbul, testified they had never met or even heard of
the two Christians on trial. The two court employees who had requested
New Testaments testified that they had initiated the request
themselves.
