HDP co-chair: Facts have been concealed by investigators

A man who killed a member of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) on 17 June 2021 was sentenced on Tuesday by a Turkish court to aggravated life imprisonment for premeditated killing.

The accused, Onur Gencer, had been caught in the scene of crime red handed with the murder weapon after he stormed the party's offices in the western city of Izmir and shot Deniz Poyraz, a young HDP member.

Gencer's social media posts, showing him posing in military camouflage making the sign of racist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and with assault rifles, had raised concerns that his attack could have been an organized one. It later also came to light that he had served in Turkish military's operations in Northern Syria.

The court's approach to the case has been subjected to strong criticism for having excluded the possibility of an organized act, and for the reason that no investigation has been carried out to find out if there are instigators.

HDP co-chair Mithat Sancar, who is an intervener in the trial, a group of deputies, and the chair of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) were denied access to the court room, +Gercek reported.

Sancar said:

"From the very beginning of the investigation, there have been systematical efforts to conceal facts. This murder is not an ordinary one. There can only be political motivations in such an incident in which some one brutally murders a person that he never met."

He added:

"In the course of the investigation, the law enforcement did everything in its power to conceal the links and to reflect the incident as an isolated one. There are numerous political murders in the history of Turkey, and the method followed after each is similar. The links behind those murders, particularly the links within the state structure have always been left uninvestigated; they have been covered up. This is the reason why the country has to face new political murders."