This article appeared in Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper today (December 29), about the conclusion of a trial in which the defendants were accused of supplying sarin gas to jihadi groups in Syria. While the trial itself concerned supplying the gas to other jihadists, the comment at the end is about Daesh
In the ‘sarin gas trial’ being heard at Adana’s Serious Crime Court No 9, with the fugitive Syrian accused Hytham Qassap being sentenced to twelve years’ imprisonment in his absence for membership of a terrorist organization, the five Turks being tried without remand accused of aiding this person were acquitted.
The Adana police, having received information that attempts were being made to obtain certain chemicals used in the making of chemical bombs for the Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria Ahrar ash-Sham and the al-Nusra Front, staged an operation at a number of addresses on May 28 2013. Of those arrested, five, one of them Syrian, were remanded in custody and one was released pending trial. When it was ascertained that the substances seized along with the suspects was not sarin gas, the Turkish citizens who had been remanded were released on July 17 2003.
QASSAP WAS ALSO RELEASED
Proceedings were initiated against the six suspects, one of them remanded, at Adana Serious Crime Court No 10, at that time having specially authorized status. The 132-page indictment called on Syrian Hytham Qassap (37) alias ‘Abu Salah’ to be sentenced to up to twenty-five years’ imprisonment for ‘membership of an armed terror organization’ and ‘attempting to supply arms to an armed terror organization’, and for unremanded Halit Usta (54), Halit Ünalkaya (49), İbrahim Akça (52), Bekir Karaoğlan (45) and Raif Ay (42) to be sentenced to up to fifteen years’ imprisonment each for ‘attempting to supply arms to an armed terror organization’. With all of the accused denying the charges, the remanded accused Qassap asserted that he was obtaining food and humanitarian aid for the Free Syrian Army. The presiding judges decided to release the remanded accused Hytham Qassap.
LABORATORY TESTS COME UP WITH PROOF
At the trial’s other hearings, however, it emerged in laboratory tests that sarin gas could be produced if the seized chemicals were combined and, with this also raised in the prosecution’s indictment, an order was issued for the apprehension of Hytham Qassap, who had previously been released. RULING ISSUED IN THE PROCEEDINGS Serious Crime Court No 9, to which the file passed with the abolition of specially authorized courts, remitted the file to Hatay Serious Crime Court on the grounds that Hatay was the scene of the events. This court then declared itself to lack jurisdiction. The Court of Cassation, deliberating as to venue at which the case should be heard, remitted the file to Adana Serious Crime Court No 9. The unremanded accused did not attend the sixth session held today of the trial that thus resumed after some two and a half years. The presiding judges sentenced the fugitive Syrian accused Hytham Qassap to twelve years’ imprisonment in his absence for membership of a terrorist organization. Conversely, they acquitted the five unremanded Turkish accused who were alleged to have assisted the Syrian of the offence of obtaining the chemicals on the grounds that the offence remained at the preparatory stage and that the act was not defined as an offence in the law.
WHAT HAD THE CHP’S ERDEM PREVIOUSLY SAID?
CHP deputy Eren Erdem brought to public attention in a speech he made to parliament on December 10 that Daesh members in Syria were obtaining sarin gas used as a chemical weapon from Turkey and, in an interview he gave to the Russian RT channel concerning the issue, asserted that Adana Chief Public Prosecution had issued an indictment in 2013 but that the case had been closed within one week. In a later explanation, Erdem, stating that the assertions in question were not his own and this information was included in the indictment drawn up by Adana Chief Public Prosecution, said “Adana Public Prosecutor Mehmet Arıkan ordered an operation to be staged into the sending of sarin gas. The implicated persons were arrested. But, as far as I can see, Mehmet Arıkan is not a person who has clout in the bureaucracy. A week later, a new prosecutor was appointed and he took care of the case. All of those who had been arrested were released and they left Turkey for Syria.”
