Turkish police officer faces light penalty for killing 12-year-old child

The prosecution asked for a prison sentence of two to six years in the trial of a police officer who fatally shot a 12-year-old girl in 2015 during a curfew in a neighborhood of Turkey's Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir, Mezopotamya News Agency (MA) reported.

The girl named Halin Hasret Sen was killed in October 2015 by Abdullah Ercan, the gunner of an armored police vehicle.

The prosecution asked for a punishment not on charge of deliberate manslaughter, but of gross negligence, and wanted the accused to be sentenced to a prison term of two to six years.

There were children playing in the street prior to the incident and the accused should have assessed that the children could still be in the vicinity, the prosecutor said, adding that the police officer did not see the victim as he fired, thus did not have intention to kill.

Abdullah Zeytun, the lawyer representing the family of the victim, said in court that several evidences showed Sen was killed in a targeted shooting, and that the prosecution did not take the evidence into account, or conducted an effective investigation.

Zeytun demanded that the court issue an arrest warrant for the accused.

Abdullah Ercan, who attended the hearing session via video link, claimed that there were clashes during the time of the incident, and denied that he made a targeted shooting.

The panel rejected the demand for Ercan's arrest and postponed the trial to 19 October 2023.