ISTANBUL – Five years after the death of prominent Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci, court proceedings began Oct. 21 in which three police officers and one Kurdish militant are charged with killing the former chair of the Diyarbakir Bar Association.
Attorneys for Elci’s family claimed the trial was marked by abnormalities, requesting the judge panel recuse itself for not exhibiting “impartiality” after it rejected all their requests. The judges ruled to send the recusal request to an upper court for examination, postponing the trial until March 3, 2021.