The Turkish government has filed a motion to dismiss a multi-million-dollar lawsuit filed against the Republic of Turkey by mostly pro-Kurdish demonstrators who were attacked by members of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security detail in Washington, DC, on May 16, 2017.

The move is part of a broader effort to bury the case, which has seen Turkish authorities pressuring plaintiffs and their loved ones back in Turkey to drop the charges, the victims say.

In the 82-page document submitted on June 4 by DC-based law firm Saltzman & Evinch, it is argued at length that the Turkish president faced life-threatening circumstances as he pulled up at the elevated driveway of the Turkish ambassador’s residence on Sheridan Circle in his armored sedan. The Turkish leader’s guards were exercising discretionary acts of security to “remove the perceived threat” posed by a group of protesters including women and children who stood on the grass around Gen. Sheridan’s monument. 

The violent melee that unfolded outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence on Sheridan Circle triggered a barrage of outrage. Erdogan’s notoriously thuggish guards were captured on video beating and kicking men and women alike. Congressmen on both sides of the aisle called for the Turkish envoy’s immediate expulsion and some 15 of the guards were indicted by a district court and banned from re-entering the United States. In March, a US federal judge ruled that 15 of the demonstrators, nearly all US citizens, may continue to seek damages for the injuries they said they had suffered at the hands of Erdogan’s men in what they contend amounted to assault, battery and hate crimes.