Court starts hearing suspects in shop torching case in central Turkey

KIRŞEHİR

A Kırşehir court has begun trying six arrested suspects and 11 others for violent attacks against the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and Kurds in the Central Anatolian province early in September. 

A number of local business owners of stores that were torched in the Kırşehir during nationwide anti-terror protests said the perpetrators who carried out the attacks against the shops had specified their targets in advance. The perpetrators walked the streets of Kırşehir for about seven hours with a list of the stores they had planned to set ablaze, said Sait Akıllı, a bookstore owner whose shop was one of some 32 shops, as well as the HDP building, set alight in Kırşehir.

R.A., one of the suspects, said at the court that he was among those who threw stones at the bookstore. “I was told that the owner was a PKK sympathizer,” he said. 

Another suspect, G.H., said he was under the influence of alcohol. Someone in the crowd shouted “Attack the Gül Bookstore,” he said. 

There are a total of 59 suspects in the case, with 20 of them under arrest. The indictment states that the attack was motivated by racial discrimination and that the suspects continued their acts even though they could ascertain that people might be killed.