Al-Turk: my trial is political not criminal; trial postponed
Syria, Politics, 5/31/2002

Trial session of the first secretary of the Syrian Communist Party -- political bureau -- Riad al-Turk continued on Wednesday, despite an earlier threat by the defence lawyer to pullout from the case if the condition set by them for "an open trial" is not met.

Events of Wednesday's trial session of al-Turk developed towards the request made by the defendant to postpone presenting their defense before the court, and for that reason, the trial session was postponed until June 10th. Only journalists were permitted to stand in front of the building of the court.

The defendant's lawyer Khalil Matouq said that his client (al-Turk) did not answer the questions put to him by the judge, but only spoke to justify his silence.

Matouq said "at the beginning the attorney general read a memorandum in which it answered the memorandum submitted in the last trial session, and also asked the chairman of the court to chop a phrase from the defendant's memorandum on its conviction that it is damaging to the attorney general. The court approved that and the session was halted just for half an hour."

Matouq continued that "after the second trial session was held the attorney general asked for the basis of the case and the chairman of the court read accusations addressed to Riad al-Turk as stated in the accusation charges." Matouq also said that al-Turk then talked "not to answer the accusations addressed to him, rather to clarify the silent position he had taken." Matouq quoted al-Turk as saying "after long thinking and reflection, I found that my previous position is still correct and that is because my case is a political one and not a criminal one, but it needs to be explained. This explanation is put to that there is a sedition that wanted to be flared up and expanded." The chairman of the court, according to Matouq, asked him (al-Turk) to clarify what does sedition mean, and al-Turk said "My words are not addressed to you, rather for the authority and water is in my mouth.. Is it possible for the one who has water in his mouth to talk... I have repeated the accusations before the investigations judge. I do not want, by my words to contribute to setting sedition ablaze, rather I want to help my logical countrymen to extinct this sedition." Al-Turk added "I can understand the role of the attorney (general) and my full respect to it despite the fact of its accusations against me are not objective; the common man in the street who does not understand what rights mean -- can defuse them. All what I say in front of you is just a defense and all documents presented at the court, attributed to me -- and I signed it or wrote it -- I also consider as a defense for myself and I do not give up one word of what I have said." Matouq continued quoting al-Turk: "I, personally, do not want to pour oil on fire, nor to deny any statement of the words I made. I declare responsibility for all these and I do not ask for mercy nor sympathy, rather I ask for reaching the truth and justice." According to Matouq, al-Turk asked to consider the case very soon and to issue the sentence.

Then the lawyers asked for a grace period to present their defense after photocopying other documents which are the decision of the attorney general, statements of the witnesses and the attorney general and therefore the trial session was postponed until June 10th.

Previous Stories:
  Syria: State security court stresses its authority in al-Turk's case   (5/28/2002)
  Public trial for al-Turk is still under dispute   (5/20/2002)
  The first trial session of Dalila, Saleh trial   (5/10/2002)

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