The trial of Kurdish politician Kenan Ayaz, who has been on trial in Hamburg for a year, continued on Wednesday at the Hamburg Higher Regional Court, with the prosecution requesting four and a half years in prison in its closing arguments.
After the court rejected further defence motions for evidence and Judge Wende-Spohrs declared the evidentiary hearing closed, prosecutor Simons began his closing arguments.
He began by discussing Kenan Ayaz’s circumstances. Ayaz had been arrested and mistreated in Turkey in 1993 at the age of 18, as had his brother, who was then 13 years old.
After his release in 2005, he founded an educational academy and was imprisoned again for six months. In 2010, he fled to Cyprus to escape the threat of another prison sentence.
Ayaz is charged with membership in a terrorist organisation, the PKK.
Simons went on to discuss the organisational structure of the PKK. He argued that there had been no relevant changes in the PKK and the KCK even after the reorganisation.
Although the KCK had stated that it sought democratic confederalism, the model of the “Democratic Nation” was still being used to establish state structures.
The “nation,” according to Abdullah Öcalan, reinterpreted as a democratically organised coexistence of all ethnic and religious groups, is ultimately anything but primitive nationalism.
Simons went on to say that the self-governance sought by the KCK and the PKK is “unrealistic” because Turkey would never agree to such autonomy due to its stance, so it could only be achieved through violence.
The PKK was still oriented towards the “leadership” of Öcalan. The prosecutor ignored the fact that Öcalan had been isolated for 25 years and had had no contact with the outside world for three years.
Regarding the armed conflict, Simons stated, “There is no doubt” that it was a “significant attack.”
Kenan Ayaz was active as a “full-time official” of the PKK in Hamburg between September 2018 and June 2019 and then in Cologne and the North Rhine region until July 2020.
This was revealed by surveillance measures, especially the interception of text messages. He participated in “supra-local official meetings” and memorial events and helped organise marches and festivals.
The prosecutor mentioned that he had behaved in a “conspiratorial” manner, even though he had not used a pseudonym. Fundraising for the PKK could not be proven, but phrases like “let’s go for a walk” and “let’s walk” or asking if a “job was done” would allow the conclusion that it was about fundraising, even if the defence could prove in one case that such a phrase meant exactly what was said, i.e., the delivery of food to a “big march.”
Simons argued that there were all indications that Kenan Ayaz was a PKK official, that the PKK is a terrorist organisation, and that the decision of the Belgian justice system on January 28, 2020, that the PKK is part of an armed conflict does not contradict this. Armed struggle “is not a suitable means” to combat oppression, and PKK fighters are not combatants in an armed conflict, he said.
Mitigating circumstances and sentence request
There were mitigating circumstances in the conviction: Ayaz wanted to serve the Kurdish cause, and pretrial detention in Germany was difficult for him, also because he did not speak German.
However, the fact that Ayaz “continued with open eyes” despite his imprisonment weighed against him in sentencing. Furthermore, he had not confessed.
He will serve his sentence in Cyprus when the trial is over.
Finally, Simons requested a sentence of four years and six months in prison for Kenan Ayaz.
Trial observer: “I feel like I’m in Turkey”
Trial observers and members of the “FreeKenan” committee were disappointed by the severity of the sentence requested. The whole reasoning and procedure were no different from those in Turkey.
“I feel like I’m in a Turkish court,” said an observer with her own experience of persecution. Although it makes a big difference whether five or 5,000 people are sentenced each year, the way Kenan Ayaz was treated brings back bad memories of her experiences in Turkey, she mentioned.
Defence memorandum on July 2
The defence of Kenan Ayaz will make its arguments on 2 July. The defence’s closing arguments for Kenan Ayaz are expected to begin on 9 July.
