A former mayor in southeastern Turkey was sentenced to more than nine years in prison for terrorism offenses, judicial sources said Monday.
Adnan Selçuk Mızraklı, the former mayor of Diyarbakır for the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), was sentenced for membership in a terrorist group and spreading terrorist propaganda, said the sources. The sentence was upheld by the Diyarbakır 9th Heavy Penal Court on the conviction of "being a member of an armed terrorist organization.”
During the trial, the public prosecutor expressed his opinion regarding Mızraklı's punishment and the continuation of his detention. Mızraklı’s lawyers requested that the suspect be released.
One of the witnesses included a suspected terrorist with the code name "Bermal,” also known by the initials H.B.A., who had surrendered to security forces in southeastern Mardin province. The statements of H.B.A. were included in the testimony. According to his statement, Mızraklı had visited the Democratic Society Congress (DTK), the PKK's legislative body.
“Mızraklı brought a terrorist named 'Hogır' to the private hospital in Diyarbakır late at night. Mızraklı ensured that the terrorist would be discharged and released without being delivered to security forces,” H.B.A. said. “Apart from this surgery, I often heard that patients and injured members of the organization were secretly brought to the hospital at night, under the control of Mızraklı, and the operations and treatments that he was involved in,” he added.
According to H.B.A., Mızraklı went to Iraq and Europe to meet with high-ranking PKK figures to discuss their support of his parliamentary and mayor candidacy.
H.B.A. claimed that some of those trips were disguised as "medical congresses" and "symposiums" but were actually meetings with senior figures in the terror organization.
Suspended for allegedly supporting terrorism, Mızraklı was arrested during a counter-terrorism investigation. HDP is accused of having ties to the PKK. The PKK has taken some 40,000 lives – including women, children, and infants – over the last 30 years.
