Parents of girl who died fighting in PKK ranks acquitted of terror charges

ANTALYA

The parents of Ayşe Deniz Karacagil, who died in Iraq’s Raqqa after joining the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), have been acquitted of charges of “making terror propaganda” by attending their daughter’s funeral.

The prosecutor had demanded up to three years in jail for Karacagil’s mother, Nuray Erçağan, and her father, Ömer Faruk Karacagil.

They were charged with “praising Karacagil’s activities as a member of a terror organization” and “taking pictures in a place where members and symbols of a terror organization were also present.”

Their lawyer Hakan Evcin said no parents should be punished for attending their daughter’s funeral. Eventually, the Antalya 2nd Heavy Penal Court has recently acquitted Karacagil’s parents of all charges.

Karacagil first became publicly known in Turkey as “the girl with the red foulard” during the Gezi protests in summer 2013, spending four months in custody after police and prosecutors linked the color of her scarf to socialism during her interrogations.

A year later, she joined the PKK, adopting the name “Destan Yörük” as her alias.

In 2017, she died near Raqqa fighting in the People’s Protection Units (YPG) ranks, a group that Turkey sees as a terror group for its ties to the PKK. </s> ANKARA (Reuters) - A Syrian opposition activist and her journalist daughter have been found murdered in their apartment in Istanbul, the Istanbul police department said on Friday.

The bodies of 60-year-old Orouba Barakat and her 22-year-old daughter Halla were found overnight in their apartment in Istanbul's Uskudar neighborhood in the Asian side of the city.

 Turkish media reports said Orouba Barakat was investigating alleged torture in prisons run by the Syrian government. It said she had initially lived in Britain, then the United Arab Emirates before coming to Istanbul.

 "The hand of tyranny and injustice assassinated my sister Doctor Orouba and her daughter Halla in their apartment in Istanbul," Orouba's sister Shaza wrote on Facebook, adding that they were stabbed to death.

 "Orouba wrote headlines in the first page and she pursued criminals and exposed them. Her name and her daughter's name, Hala, now made first page headlines," Shaza added.

 Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Turkey has become home to almost three million Syrian refugees, many of them opponents of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

 

 (Reporting by Ece Toksabay) </s> One person was killed and 11 were wounded in a Kirkuk car bomb attack that targeted Turkmen Front candidate Amar Hadaya Kahiya. Kahiya is also an advisor to the head of a Turkmen unit of the Hashd al-Shaabi. Two of Kahiya’s bodyguards and the driver were wounded. Kahiya was uninjured.

Five people were injured during a brawl at an election rally in Raniya. The rally was for the New Generation Movement, a recently formed political party.

Turkey announced the death of a senior member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.), who was killed on March 21 during an operation in an area near Hakurk and Kani Rash.

Human Rights Watch released a report detailing what it believes to be abuses committed by the Kurdistan Regional Government on demonstrators and correspondents during March. At least 84 protesters and four journalists were detained, and many were also beaten.

Shi’ite cleric Muqtada la-Sadr called on followers to protest the U.S.-led airstrikes on Syria this weekend. Sadr himself joined the Sunday demonstrators in Najaf. Thousands of others protested in several Iraqi cities, including Baghdad and Basra.
• Kurdish Brothers Killed in Turkish Airstrike Among Four Killed in Iraq – April 14th, 2018
• Turkish Soldier Among 10 Killed in Iraq; 60 Found in Mass Grave – April 11th, 2018 </s> The Turkish government has handed over Iranian opposition journalist Arash Sohashargh to the Tehran regime, according to a report by online news outlet Artı Gerçek.

Columnist Yıldız Candan wrote for Artı Gerçek that Sohashargh, who was accused by Tehran of opposing the regime and who sought asylum in Turkey last year, is being held in a prison in Gilan province. Candan said Sohashargh had been followed by Iranian intelligence, citing the jailed journalist’s family members.

According to Candan’s article, Sohashargh’s family became alarmed when he went missing in the Turkish province of Van in February 2018 despite the fact that the Iranian journalist was under the protection of the United Nations. “If these allegations are true, then there was unlawful cooperation between Turkey and Iran with regard to the extradition of an opposition member,’’ Candan noted.

Iran is accused of the arbitrary arrest and detention of journalists’ family members and the confiscation of passports and travel bans preventing people from leaving Iran as well as the ongoing surveillance of journalists and their families.

Meanwhile, Turkish police on Monday physically prevented pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputies from laying a black wreath in front of the Embassy of Iran in Ankara to protest the imminent execution of Kurdish prisoner Ramin Hossein Panahi.

During an ensuing scuffle, police manhandled HDP deputy Filiz Kerestecioğlu, who wanted to make a statement and grabbed a banner another woman was carrying, according to a report by Kurdistan 24. Police forcefully dispersed the group and also arrested four people who were participating in the demonstration against Panahi’s expected execution, beating one to the ground.

In a statement made by the HDP, Kerestecioglu said the conduct of the Turkish police meant Ankara supported the Tehran government’s policy of executing political prisoners. Appearing along with deputies Saliha Aydeniz and Dirayet Taşdemir, she condemned both states.

“This is the approval of oppression, fascism and capital punishment. They [Turkish authorities] only know how to attack. We do not know what kind of dirty bargains they have with Iran. But we, as deputies, know very well the right to peaceful protest is enshrined in the law,” she said.

An Iranian court in Kurdistan Province sentenced Panahi to death earlier this year for taking up arms against the state.

The HDP’s co-leader Pervin Buldan and Sezai Temelli, meanwhile, for the second time in two months, penned a letter to Iran’s Ambassador Mohammad Ebrahim Taherian Fard, urging his country to halt the carrying out of Panahi’s death sentence.

“If Israel were ever to announce it was going to execute a young Arab man, these low-lives would bring the sky down,” Botan tweeted.

On Monday Panahi’s brother, Amjad Hossein Panahi, said Iranian authorities could carry out the execution within 48 hours.

Turkey is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). If Turkey falls two more places, it will make it to the list of countries on the blacklist, which have the poorest record in press freedom.

Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 237 journalists and media workers were in jail as of September 2, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison 169 were under arrest pending trial while only 68 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 145 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.

Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down some 200 media outlets, including Kurdish news agencies and newspapers, after a coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016. </s> A member of the Russian diplomatic corps (left) talks with two Russian nationals as they attend their trial at the Central Penal Court in Baghdad on Tuesday (AFP photo)

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq on Tuesday sentenced a French woman to life in prison for belonging to the Daesh group, raising to more than 180 the number of such convictions of foreign women since the country's defeat of Daesh.

Djamila Boutoutaou, a 29-year-old of Algerian origin, told a Baghdad court that she left France with her husband, a rapper.

She said she thought they were going on holiday but "when I arrived in Turkey I discovered that my husband was a militant".

She said she was forced by her husband to join Daesh and live in the "caliphate" that the extremists proclaimed in 2014 straddling Syria and Iraq.

Boutoutaou, who appeared in court wearing a brown headscarf, said she and her two children had been forced to live in a "cave".

Her husband was killed near the former Daesh stronghold of Mosul, northern Iraq, and her son died in bombardment, Boutoutaou said, before she and the wife of a neighbour fled and surrendered to Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

Two women from Russia, both holding children in their arms, were also sentenced to life in prison at the same hearing, while five from Azerbaijan were condemned to death along with a woman from Trinidad.

Iraq declared victory in December against Daesh, which at one point controlled a third of the country.

The Iraqi anti-terrorism law empowers courts to convict people who are believed to have helped Daesh even if they are not accused of violence.

In January, an Iraqi court condemned a German woman to death after finding her guilty of belonging to Daesh.

A court the following month sentenced another French woman to seven months in jail for entering Iraq illegally but ordered her release on time already served.

Under Iraqi anti-terrorism laws, a total of 97 foreign women have now been condemned to death since January and 185 others to life imprisonment by courts in Baghdad, a judicial source told AFP.

Most of the women were from Turkey and republics of the former Soviet Union.

Iraqi authorities have not announced any of the sentences being carried out. </s> Turkey will continue ops along borders until threats eliminated, VP says

PKK terrorists detonated a bomb as a minibus with civilians passed on a road in southeastern Turkey's Şırnak province, killing two people.

The passengers were reportedly on their way to the Silopi town, returning from a picnic on the slopes of Mount Cudi in the Uyanık village, when their minibus was hit by the explosion.

The driver, 28-year-old Servet Bilen, and his 13-year-old brother, Diyar Bilen, were killed.

Also on Sunday in Şırnak, two Turkish soldiers were killed during a clash with PKK terrorists, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The attacks come after three soldiers were killed Saturday in the neighboring province of Hakkari by PKK shelling from northern Iraq, and a fourth was killed in clashes with the PKK's Syrian affiliate People's Protection Units (YPG) in Tel Rifaat in northern Syria, the Defense Ministry said.

The Turkish military launched a wide-scale air-supported counter-terrorism operation against the terrorists in response to the soldiers' deaths, neutralizing 28 PKK/YPG terrorists, according to the Defense Ministry.

Separately, security sources said Sunday that Turkish airstrikes had neutralized five PKK terrorists in northern Iraq as part of an operation launched to retaliate against the cross-border attacks a day earlier.

The airstrikes targeted the area across the border from the southeastern province of Hakkari, the sources said, adding that the army's operation in the region continued.

Turkish authorities often use the word "neutralized" in their statements to imply that the terrorists in question either surrendered or were killed or captured.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and the EU. In its decadeslong terror campaign against Turkey, the group has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women and children. </s> ISTANBUL — A suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday during a Turkish police raid against suspected Islamic State members near the Syrian border, killing three police officers and wounding nine other people, an official said.

In a separate explosion, a man suspected of being responsible for an IS suicide bomber cell in Gaziantep blew himself about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away in another district of the city, provincial governor Ali Yerlikaya said in a televised statement. No one else was killed or wounded in the second blast.

Earlier, police received a tip about a group of IS militants hiding in a house in the city's Sahinbey district and launched an operation to apprehend them. A militant blew himself up when he realized he couldn't escape. Three police officers were killed, while five police officers and four civilians were wounded, Yerlikaya said.

News reports initially said that more than one suicide bomber was involved in the first explosion.

The governor said the police raid followed intelligence that the group could be planning an attack on an Alevi cultural association in the city. The Alevis are an offshoot of Shia Islam and are the largest religious group in Turkey after Sunnis. IS regards Alevis as heretics.

Hours later, a man suspected of organizing IS activities in Gaziantep blew himself up in an apartment as Turkish police were about to "neutralize" him, Yerlikaya said. The man was identified by the governor as Mehmet Kadir Cebael. The man's wife and two children were apprehended alive. TV footage showed the fifth floor of the building in which part of the wall was blown away.

The governor said Cebael was the "brain" behind the plan to attack the Alevi cultural association.

Turkey has been rocked by a series of deadly attacks over the past year, carried out by IS or Kurdish militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

In August, 54 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up during an outdoor wedding celebration in Gaziantep. Authorities said the attack was the work of the IS group.

Following the deadly attack in August, Turkish tanks entered the Syrian town of Jarablus and began its Euphrates Shield operation with Turkey-backed Syrian opposition forces to clear its shared border with Syria from IS. The symbolic town of Dabiq in northern Syria was captured Sunday where IS fighters put up "minimal" resistance.

Suzan Fraser contributed to this report from Ankara. </s> The daughter of a man killed by Islamic State militants has expressed anger at complaints by his alleged killers that they will not get a fair trial.

Bethany Haines, whose father David died in Syria, said Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh had shown "no remorse".

The pair, who say their UK citizenship has been illegally withdrawn, allegedly belonged to an IS group dubbed "The Beatles" because of their UK accents.

Now jailed in Syria, they called the murder of IS hostages "regrettable".
• Who were the Islamic State group 'Beatles' cell?
• Families of IS victims say 'Beatles' pair 'should face trial'
• Where should the IS 'Beatles' be tried?

Ms Haines, whose father was held hostage for 18 months by the group, said: "It shocks me that two individuals who have committed such heinous crimes have been treated like guests with access to the media and are allowed access to smartphones.

"As for them saying that their actions in Syria are regrettable is an understatement."

In an interview with Associated Press from northern Syria, Elsheikh said the "illegal" withdrawal of their UK citizenship put them at risk of "rendition and torture".

"Being taken to any foreign land and treated in any way and having nobody to vouch for you," he said.

"When you have these two guys who don't even have any citizenship... if we just disappear one day, where is my mum going to go and say, 'Where is my son?'"

He said he could have "no fair trial" when he was "the Beatle" in the media.

But Ms Haines said the men could not ask for their rights when they had "stripped" her father of his by holding him "with his family not knowing whether he was dead or alive".

She said: "In my opinion they should be given an orange jumpsuit and stripped of all the things they hold dear and left to rot in Guantanamo Bay."

Her views were echoed by Diane Foley, whose son James, an American journalist, was beheaded by the group in Syria in 2014. She said she wasn't interested in their opinions and doubted the sincerity of what they had said.

"I am interested in them being held accountable for their horrific crimes and right now, they look like they're on vacation," she told Radio 4's Today programme.

"I know it's complicated but if someone doesn't take the leadership and take them to trial I fear they'll get away."

Sarah El Deeb, the journalist who interview the pair, described the men as "very smart" and "very religious".

"I don't think they were very apologetic about being members of Islamic state," she told the BBC.

US officials believe the so-called "Beatles" cell beheaded more than 27 Western hostages and tortured many more.

Kotey told the Associated Press that he "didn't see any benefit" to the killings.

"It was something that was regrettable," he said.

He also said many people in IS would have opposed the murders "on the grounds that there is probably more benefit in them being political prisoners".

The other cell members were Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed "Jihadi John", and Aine Davis.

All four were from west London.

Emwazi, who was the alleged ringleader and appeared in videos showing hostages being beheaded, was killed by a drone strike in 2015.

Davis was convicted of being a senior IS member and was jailed in Turkey last year.
• Aine Davis, the gangster who ditched drugs for jihad

Captives killed by the cell are thought to have included Alan Henning as well as Mr Haines. The men, both British aid workers were beheaded.

Last month, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the two remaining suspects in the 'Beatles' gang should go on trial.

She said the US and UK were in talks about what to do with the two men.

Both Kotey and Elsheikh have been designated terrorists by the US, which says they used "exceptionally cruel" torture methods.

UK defence minister Tobias Ellwood said he believed the men should be tried in an international criminal court.

The families of some of the victims also said the pair "should face trial". </s> BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court has sentenced 16 Tur­kish women to death by hanging for joining the militant Islamic State (IS) group, a judiciary spokesman said on Sunday.

Iraq is conducting the trials of hundreds of foreign women who have been detained, with hundreds of their children, since August by Iraqi forces as the IS strongholds crumbled.

The central criminal court issued the sentences “after it was proven they belong to the Daesh terrorist group and after they confessed to marrying Daesh elements or providing members of the group with logistical aid or helping them carry out terrorist attacks,” said Judge Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, referring to the militant group using an Arabic acronym.

All the verdicts are subject to appeal, he said.

Thousands of foreigners have fought on behalf of IS in Iraq and Syria since at least 2014. Many foreign women came — or were brought — from overseas to join the militants.

More than 1,300 women and children surrendered to Kurdish Peshmerga in Aug­ust, after government forces expelled the jihadist group from the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar. Their numbers have since swelled to about 1,700 as more foreign nationals surrendered or were captured during operations to root out the militants, according to aid officials.

Another Turkish woman was sentenced to death last week and 10 others of various nationalities to life in prison, all for alleged IS membership.

A German woman was sente­n­ced to death last month for belonging to the group and a Russian fighter was also sentenced to death in Iraq last year for joining the hardline group.
The parents of Ayşe Deniz Karacagil, killed in Raqqa, Syria, after she joined the Kurdistan Workers' Party, are acquitted of a terrorism propaganda charge for attending her funeral.