Defense by Yüksel Güran’s Counsel for the Defendant
Law. Doğuş Can KURUCU
The Purpose of the Defense and the Principles of a Fair Trial
Presiding Judge, we will begin by repeating a matter we raised at the start of our defense during the previous hearing. The sole reason we are here is the brutal murder of our sister Narin, and we are here so that this tragic incident, stemming from that brutal killing, can be brought to light in a manner that leaves no material doubt and so that the real perpetrator is punished. Having stated that, Presiding Judge, while we take on the role of defense counsel here, we are at the same time here for a fair trial, and for this fair trial there exist, in our legal system and in every other universal body of law including the European legal system, the universal principles of Contemporary Criminal Law. We have full confidence that these principles will be applied to the scope of this file in a manner that leaves no doubt, under your presidency and your panel. Now, Presiding Judge, our esteemed colleagues have made many remarks here. I will not tire you too much, but there is one matter that everyone has touched on without going into detail. I will start with that. Presiding Judge, I am speaking primarily about my client regarding the family being placed in the position of suspects. Of course, under CMK Article 157, a confidentiality decision was taken for the investigation, but after that confidentiality decision was issued, we do not know how, directly or indirectly, false news was pumped into the press and social media. We know it was done somehow. Alongside these reports, I refer to the gendarmerie records of the investigation as “gossip records”. With these gossip records and with these non-objective, subjective comments, my client and his family were, so to speak, turned into targets. Now, we have objections regarding these false reports and how much they influenced the investigation, regarding the indictment of this investigation which we do not accept, and regarding its turning into an opinion (mütalaa) to which we have objected. We want to explain these. Of course, before that, I also want to mention the following. Presiding Judge, we are now in the space age. In this century, the perception of reality is highly variable. Unfortunately, it is no longer as it used to be.
The Perception of Reality in the Media Age and the First False Allegations
Professor Doctor Hüseyin Hetemi is in fact not a criminal law scholar. I am his student, and recently I have been someone who follows his social media closely. While browsing, I saw that he had written something about reality. Let me start with that. Our professor says: “Anything that does not appear on social media and television is no longer accepted as real. For this reason, the truth died writhing in its bed. This century is the age of lies and perception. The eye of the Antichrist is the media.” Unfortunately, the false news reports targeting my client and his family were made subject to the indictment and the opinion, which is why we want to explain them. Now, Presiding Judge, let us look at the first section. There was an allegation at the beginning that a slipper found near my client belonged to Narin and that the mother had misled on this matter. Our esteemed colleagues already spoke about this slipper issue in the file; the slipper issue, as soon as the photo was sent to the family members, was understood not to belong to Narin because of the shoe size. This matter was closed this way, but it was not closed on social media and is still being discussed. Secondly — and if Mr. Arif is here, I apologize to him profusely, I apologize again to Enes, I apologize very much to my sister Yüksel — the allegation that our sister Narin was Salim’s biological daughter is a very disgusting thing that settled into the public mind in a nauseating way. As if the pain a mother, a mother who has lost her daughter, endures were not enough, many allegations targeting her chastity were raised. It is in the file. There is even a report in the file, and I say this personally with shame, stating that Narin’s mother was Yüksel Güran and her father was Arif Güran. We also want to say that this is a lie. Apart from this — this is also important — there is the claim that my client Yüksel Güran, in order to destroy blood residues, had her own blood drawn again secretly, trying to destroy the evidence. In the file there is yet another activity carried out by law-enforcement officers that defies reason. The faith-healer (üfürükçü) matter. As you know, it is a subject everyone has touched on here; in the faith-healer matter there is the gendarmerie’s own record. Imagine a mother who, in such a terrible state, questions nothing, and in the hope of being able to find her daughter, something this absurd is said to her.
Widespread Baseless Allegations and the Role of the Media
A woman goes and gives her blood to a gendarme, and because of this she becomes guilty. No one considers this, for instance: this woman is in such a bad state that she no longer questions anything. In order to find her daughter, if they had asked for her life at that moment, she would have given her life. We do not think that giving blood indicates anything other than this. There is also the claim that on the day of the incident Salim Güran and my client Yüksel Güran spoke on the phone. These are already in the file. It is clear from the documents and call records in the file that my client did not call Salim Güran in any way, but of course these are false reports. Now, since this incident began it has not stopped. There is a tweet posted by the Ministry of Interior. You may have seen it. Approximately four and a half to five million tweets were posted concerning the Narin file; 49% of these are bot accounts, the rest are from ordinary accounts. The share of truth is limited to the situations described here. None of it is real. I will continue. There was the claim that the carpets were washed. The carpets were supposedly washed like this: Yüksel Güran washed her carpets, obscured the evidence, destroyed it. There is also a report. In the report it literally states: “As a result of the examinations carried out, it was determined that the carpets had not been washed and no intervention from outside could be established.” It passes directly into the record this way. But they continued for my client, they did not stop, they do not know how to stop. Even now there are tweets being posted: “Let her burn, let her perish.” You will be the one to give the greatest answer to those who influence the adjudication of this file with such things. We believe this. Beyond that, there is also the claim that she used a button phone as a precaution. My client had only one phone. It was already seized in the investigation phase, examined. It also came out clean. Again, there is the claim that Narin had a dog named Prenses, and this dog — now this dog actually has a problem.
Groundless Allegations Based on Sexual Fantasies
The news about the dog touched the mother, it touched Enes, and I think there were also — stomach-turning but — absurd, inconsistent allegations about sexual matters not even present in the file, and with other news items they created a perception in the public. In the file, and in the statements given by other witnesses, starting with her father, the complainant party Arif Güran, it is stated that Narin never had such a dog. Unfortunately we could not get to know her, and because of her brutal murder we also learned that she was afraid of dogs. Cameras were installed in the houses; every house was filled with cameras, and they did not say this. Presiding Judge, on September 4, Erhan Güran had a camera; he installed it on his house. He also stated the reason himself. No other camera was installed by the family members. We know that other people from outside the family installed cameras in the village. We also know why they installed them. They are afraid, because at night something might happen, someone might throw something in front of their house, they might be blamed. There is also the claim that Enes Güran was a drug addict. Supposedly because of this something was done, and supposedly my client, the mother Yüksel Güran, saw it and is protecting her son — these claims are entirely groundless. The claim that there are many nameless children’s graves in the village is groundless, and although it is not the subject of this file, there are accusations against the family, and many of these accusations are unfortunately nonsensical, groundless things born of a sexual fantasy. For example, regarding Hediye Güran: she supposedly took the morning-after pill, it went like this, it went like that. Now, Presiding Judge, the investigations in the file are clear: she went to a health center in Çarıklı, explained her condition. She got it from the pharmacy, got it while her spouse was there, and it is not the morning-after pill. She gets a birth-control pill. Let us not forget — of course I cannot know biologically as I am not a woman, but what I know, what I have researched, is that the birth-control pill and the morning-after pill do not have the same function and are not the same product. Again, allegedly so that the body would decompose more quickly, the uncle Kurtuluş Güran, who works at the DSİ, deliberately raised the water flow so the body would not be found. Presiding Judge, there were official letters in the file addressed to the DSİ. After these letters, at the request of the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, it was stated that the water flow, or rather its direction, had been changed.
Urban Legends, Fake Voice Recordings, and Other Lies
That is, no one working there has the authority to do such a thing, nor is such a thing in question. There was also the Van matter. I called it a bit of an urban legend. Supposedly Narin was alive, they smuggled her to Van by helicopter, dropped her off at the hospital. Utopian fabrications. Most importantly, Presiding Judge — I consider this very important — unfortunately, the biggest news of some journalists who profited from this file was the claim “Ramazan’s daughter — is she dead, is she alive?”, with a voice recording. Supposedly this voice recording was also examined in more detail at the previous hearing. When the Kurdish spoken in it is translated into Turkish, I think everyone understood it quite well. That such a situation does not exist, and also, Presiding Judge, there was a Beşikdüzü Municipality. There was a Twitter user named bendost, Presiding Judge. He collected aid, supposedly saplings would be planted for Narin in Beşikdüzü, and then they defrauded people. The Beşikdüzü Municipality itself shared this on its Twitter account: do not be party to these fraudsters, do not believe them. The claim that bloody gloves were found in the village was also refuted. Two different scenarios were produced about the imam. The first of these was the claim that the imam was involved. It was not even heard by the court. Many matters unrelated to this file have been the reason why our client is being tried here today, which is why we have had to explain them. The claim that inappropriate content was found on the imam’s phone also emerges like this: in a file at the prosecutor’s office — we saw it — in an interview he says the following: that the phone was a clean phone as if it had been recently bought. That is how it passes into the record. That is, there is nothing mentioned about any such phone. The “potato lines” (patates hatlar) claim was also refuted. Since our other colleagues explained it very well, I do not want to repeat it here.
The Effect of False Narratives on the Adjudication and Procedural Errors
The “collaborators misleading the gendarmerie, aged 6” — I think the 6-year-old they referred to is Narin’s little sister. We saw here what condition that little child is in; based on her claims, an AK-47 (keleş) was found. That is, her word is credited when they want, but for example she said after she came out that Narin never came home. Then no one pays attention to her. Finally, perhaps the craziest thing is that a TV series was filmed about this matter. More precisely, an episode of a series was filmed. Presiding Judge, people unfortunately forget that this is Turkey, and once people start believing in something about this perception of reality on social media, as the saying goes, it would be news if a man bit a dog. Here it is like this — they are constantly looking for something. No one knows anything; no one believes the real version of everything that has happened. Of course, another colleague earlier gave an example from Kurtlar Vadisi. A character died in the series, and we still perform funeral prayers in absentia for this character. That is, we see how tightly the people of this country’s society hold on when they believe in something. For this reason, none of these — now, these false reports being made subject to the indictment, together with the low quality of the investigation previously carried out and the gossip records of the law-enforcement personnel, is something we do not find proper. We learned of the indictment on the last day through social media. We do not want such a trial. Again, many of our colleagues have made very detailed explanations here regarding the narrowed base-station data and the experts. At the previous hearing we made a statement: many decisions of the Court of Cassation state that “It is not lawful to base a verdict on the reports of experts who are not specialists in their field.” Now, Presiding Judge, we do not know in which field these experts are specialists. If only the experts had come here, we would have asked them questions, because, as our esteemed colleagues also said, we say that these expert reports are nothing other than monstrous reports. Apart from that, regarding the intent of participation (iştirak iradesi) — my client made a very detailed explanation. But as regards our client, we believe that this participation, the form of joint perpetration, did not come about in any of the ways in which this offense could be constituted, and that the elements of this offense are not established. Other than that — I will not go into it — thank you for listening to me. I request that my client be released with an acquittal as soon as possible. This was the final defense; you were tired and I did not want to prolong it further. Thank you.