The
jail sentence of a militant from the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant (ISIL), Ahmet Güneş, has been reduced due to “good conduct” in
the southeastern province of Gaziantep, despite the fact his trial was
conducted in absentia, Doğan News Agency reported on July 11.
Güneş,
who was seen shooting a Syrian man in video footage recorded in Syria’s
Latakia, was released after being arrested and sentenced after his
release, while also receiving a reduction of his sentence. However,
Güneş didn’t participate in the three hearings of his murder trial, as
the police were unable to apprehend him.
Police officers who
were doing routine checks on a road in Gaziantep on March 25, 2014,
noticed unidentified objects being thrown out of a car driven by Mustafa
Delibaşlar and stopped it. A hard disk, a flash drive, a memory card
and a black balaclava was seized by the police in the search carried out
on the side of the road.
During the search the driver attempted
to tear up a piece of paper which had three different mail addresses and
passwords printed on it in order to avoid its seizure by the police.
The police seized the piece of paper and detained Delibaşlar, Ökkeş
Durmaz and Güneş, who were also in the car. Documents related to ISIL
were seized in searches conducted in the suspects’ houses.
The hard disk contained the footage of the execution of an alleged member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK) in Latakia by a group of ISIL militants lead by Yunus Durmaz, who
blew himself up during a police operation in Turkey on May 19. Güneş
explains why the group executed the Syrian man in Arabic and Durmaz is
seen ordering militants to shoot in the footage.
Güneş received
weapons and explosives training at ISIL camps in Syria, more footage
obtained from the hard disk revealed, according to the police. Several
documents belonging to the gendarmerie were also found in the memory
card obtained from the suspects.
Güneş and Durmaz told the
police that they were employed as construction workers in the
Ceylanpınar district of the southeastern Şanlıurfa province and didn’t
know Delibaşlar before asking him to take them to Gaziantep after seeing
that he had a car. Güneş didn’t answer the questions that the police
asked regarding ISIL and the three suspects were arrested two days after
being caught.
A complaint was filed against the suspects on April 22, 2014, over being members of an armed terrorist organization.
Güneş
told the court that he was involved in the killing of the Syrian man
due to “concerns over his own life” and that he had no connections to
any illegal group in the first hearing of the case. The other suspects
also denied the allegations and asked for their release.
On May
27, 2014, another complaint was filed against Güneş for intentional
murder and the suspects were released on condition of trial without
arrest on Oct. 30, 2014.
Meanwhile, an indictment was prepared
upon the intentional murder complaint on March 6, 2015, with the
prosecutor seeking a lifetime jail sentence for Güneş. The murder trial
started, but Güneş didn’t participate in the hearings as he was not in
custody.
At the same time, the case regarding the three missing
suspects was ongoing, as the court on Sept. 22, 2015, ruled for the
release of Delibaşlar and Durmaz for insufficient evidence for being
ISIL members. A ban of traveling abroad was also lifted for the two
suspects.
Delibaşlar was known to be among the suspects of the deadly Ankara
bombing on Oct. 10, 2015, and Durmaz was reportedly an ISIL militant
active in Turkey and Syria. The two were fighting alongside ISIL in
Syria, according to Doğan News Agency.
The court stated that
Güneş received training at ISIL camps, killed a person and committed
crimes by becoming a part of the terrorist organization and he was
sentenced to seven years and six months of prison. However, the court
reduced his sentence to six years and three months due to the suspect’s
“good conduct” during the hearing process, even though he didn’t
participate.
Meanwhile, Güneş was tracked by the police during
an ISIL investigation in Turkey. He was determined to be involved in
ISIL activities and his photos were taken to be put in the investigation
file.
The case that was opened against the suspects in the aforementioned investigation was ongoing.
Güneş’s
cousin, İsmail Güneş, staged an attack on the Gaziantep provincial
police headquarters with a bomb-laden car and caused the deaths of three
police officers, while wounding many others, on May 1.