Murat Ersan, a defendant pending trial, was detained on February 11, 2020. His detention was grounded on the reason that “the file contains concrete case and evidence pointing at the existence of strong criminal suspicion of the alleged crime; there are many defendants in the case file detained for the same reason; there are statements of an intervenor’s attorney that he will make an attempt to exert pressure on defendants who wanted to benefit from the effective remorse law, cross-defendants, plaintiffs and witnesses; the petitions of those defendants who wanted to benefit from the effective remorse law, cross-defendants, aggrieved parties and plaintiffs create strong criminal suspicion in this respect”.
However,
- There is no such petition in the file with regard to Ersan.
- It is not stated what that concrete case and evidence of the alleged sexual assault is. The file contains no video or sound recording or photograph showing that Ersan committed that crime.
- It is stated as a reason of detention order that there are many other defendants in the same position. However, there are also defendants charged with the same crime yet who wanted to benefit from the effective remorse law and who are totally free. Why were detained defendants taken as a precedent, and not those free defendants?
- Statements of an intervenor’s attorney is referred to in the reasoning. However the court did not concretize what this statement was, therefore the decision “lacks precision”. Moreover, Ersan, who has been a defendant pending trial since the beginning of the trials, has never contacted or exerted pressure on anyone during all this time. Claiming that he will do so now out of the blue is nonsense. He has no reason or attempt to put pressure on anyone.
- He has not even once skipped to go to the police station to sign the probation papers. He has attended the court hearings even though he was not summoned. Therefore there can be no suspicion of flight.
Because of these reasons, the detention order is unjust.
