- 11 Dec 2022 10:03
#15258664
Sweden is sending a man back to Turkey, to face nearly 7 years in prison, even though it is a controversial decision.
Mahmut Tat is an ethnic Kurd from Turkey. The government of Turkey is accusing him of "being a member of the PKK", which is considered to be a "terrorist organization", and which is considered a crime under the law in Turkey.
The only evidence against him is a witness, a PKK member who turned police informant.
Mahmut Tat says it is "a lie", and that he had nothing to do with the PKK.
It's always a questionable thing to be convicting suspects based on the testimony of someone else who is seeking to avoid their own punishment by giving that testimony. Maybe that other PKK member was caught by police and the authorities only agreed not to send him to prison if he agreed to rat out other members. And maybe that person was still felt loyalty to the PKK, so lied and gave authorities someone's name who was not actually part of the PKK.
Tat had fled Turkey in 2015, leaving behind wife and children, and made an application for asylum in Sweden, which eventually got rejected after some time of him living there. However, the Swedish authorities apparently decided that expulsion was not a priority. Tat did not try to go underground, but continued to work in a pizzeria, and then applied for a residence permit, pointing out that he had recently been diagnosed with cancer, an application that would have a good chance of a positive decision in comparable cases.
He had been in Sweden for seven years.
Some people believe that the Swedish government may have come under pressure to comply with the extradition requests from Turkey because Sweden is currently considering joining NATO and Turkey holds veto power. Turkey's President Erdoğan has been threatening to block the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO because of the presence of PKK members on their soil. (Finland and Sweden sought to join NATO in May 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine)
Mahmut Tat was detained by the Swedish police on November 22, 2022, and then quickly extradited to Turkey on December 2.
The lawyer Abdullah Deveci was unable to call him, presumably because Tat's mobile phone had been confiscated during his detention.
Abdullah Deveci is a lawyer from the Swedish migration office who was at one time assigned to the file for Mahmut Tat. Abdullah Deveci was taken off the case 2 years ago because, he said, "This file is political, it has nothing to do with the law." Deveci stated that the lawyer appointed to Tat by the state only looked at the detention file and said: "We talked to many lawyers in the country to look at the file, but none of them were wanted to read it. If Sweden has become like this in six months, it's a terrible thing for the Swedish people and democracy. For this reason, I decided to take over the file again last night and tried to contact Mahmut, but I could not reach him."
Deveci said that he met with the lawyer who handled Tat's detention file, who told him that since Mahmut Tat did not specifically authorize him to share his information with another lawyer, he could not talk about Tat's situation with Deveci.
Deveci said that he also called the detention center and they told him they could not give him any information without Tat's request, but they also would not allow him to speak with Tat.
Deveci said something similar had happened with a previous client, Resul Özdemir, who was extradited to Turkey by Sweden in 2020. When Resul had told Deveci that police implied that they would send him to Turkey, he called the detention facility and Deveci was told over the phone that 'no, we will not send him'. But two days later, Deveci could not reach Resul in the same way, and then Deveci saw in the news that Resul had been extradited to Turkey.
PKK has been fighting against the Ankara government for the recognition of Kurdish territory, part of a conflict that historically goes back to the founding of the modern government of Turkey when the newly formed government refused to give the Kurdish territory any level of autonomy. In Syria, the U.S. and E.U. formed a sort of alliance with the PKK because of their importance to the fight against the Islamic State. Many believe that the U.S. and E.U. would probably not have even legally categorized the PKK as a terrorist organization if it were not for Turkey's insistence and Turkey's strategic importance to the NATO alliance in that region.
Mahmut Tat was sentenced to 6 years and 10 months in prison by a Turkish court. But this was before Tat was extradited to Turkey. It appears that the court in Turkey decided the punishment before Tat had fled to Sweden. In Turkey, something exists called trial in absentia, which means the government will hold a trial for an accused person even if they have not been taken into custody, and are not present to defend themselves.
Baris Onay is another Turkish citizen who fled to Sweden that the Turkish government is seeking to extradite.
In the case of Baris Onay, it was open political activity in the editorial office of the left-wing newspaper Odak (Focusing), which made Turkey's security forces interested in him. Although the newspaper is legal in Turkey, both Baris Onay and his wife, who also worked at Odak, have twice been sentenced to several years in prison in unfair Kafka-like trials. After they were both released after spending six months in prison, they fled to Sweden in 2015.
Unlike Mahmut Tat, Baris Onay has received a permanent residence permit. He says he fears he could be next.
Turkish court imprisons PKK terrorist extradited by Sweden | Daily Sabah, Dec 3, 2022
https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/dip ... -by-sweden
"Stop the deportation of Mahmut to Turkey!" (postsen.com)
https://sweden.postsen.com/local/56373/ ... urkey.html
additional sources come from the Info-Türk website, and Taz (Die Tageszeitung), "Sweden and Finland joined NATO, Sweden extradites Kurds", Reinhard Wolff, Dec 4, 2022
Mahmut Tat is an ethnic Kurd from Turkey. The government of Turkey is accusing him of "being a member of the PKK", which is considered to be a "terrorist organization", and which is considered a crime under the law in Turkey.
The only evidence against him is a witness, a PKK member who turned police informant.
Mahmut Tat says it is "a lie", and that he had nothing to do with the PKK.
It's always a questionable thing to be convicting suspects based on the testimony of someone else who is seeking to avoid their own punishment by giving that testimony. Maybe that other PKK member was caught by police and the authorities only agreed not to send him to prison if he agreed to rat out other members. And maybe that person was still felt loyalty to the PKK, so lied and gave authorities someone's name who was not actually part of the PKK.
Tat had fled Turkey in 2015, leaving behind wife and children, and made an application for asylum in Sweden, which eventually got rejected after some time of him living there. However, the Swedish authorities apparently decided that expulsion was not a priority. Tat did not try to go underground, but continued to work in a pizzeria, and then applied for a residence permit, pointing out that he had recently been diagnosed with cancer, an application that would have a good chance of a positive decision in comparable cases.
He had been in Sweden for seven years.
Some people believe that the Swedish government may have come under pressure to comply with the extradition requests from Turkey because Sweden is currently considering joining NATO and Turkey holds veto power. Turkey's President Erdoğan has been threatening to block the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO because of the presence of PKK members on their soil. (Finland and Sweden sought to join NATO in May 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine)
Mahmut Tat was detained by the Swedish police on November 22, 2022, and then quickly extradited to Turkey on December 2.
The lawyer Abdullah Deveci was unable to call him, presumably because Tat's mobile phone had been confiscated during his detention.
Abdullah Deveci is a lawyer from the Swedish migration office who was at one time assigned to the file for Mahmut Tat. Abdullah Deveci was taken off the case 2 years ago because, he said, "This file is political, it has nothing to do with the law." Deveci stated that the lawyer appointed to Tat by the state only looked at the detention file and said: "We talked to many lawyers in the country to look at the file, but none of them were wanted to read it. If Sweden has become like this in six months, it's a terrible thing for the Swedish people and democracy. For this reason, I decided to take over the file again last night and tried to contact Mahmut, but I could not reach him."
Deveci said that he met with the lawyer who handled Tat's detention file, who told him that since Mahmut Tat did not specifically authorize him to share his information with another lawyer, he could not talk about Tat's situation with Deveci.
Deveci said that he also called the detention center and they told him they could not give him any information without Tat's request, but they also would not allow him to speak with Tat.
Deveci said something similar had happened with a previous client, Resul Özdemir, who was extradited to Turkey by Sweden in 2020. When Resul had told Deveci that police implied that they would send him to Turkey, he called the detention facility and Deveci was told over the phone that 'no, we will not send him'. But two days later, Deveci could not reach Resul in the same way, and then Deveci saw in the news that Resul had been extradited to Turkey.
PKK has been fighting against the Ankara government for the recognition of Kurdish territory, part of a conflict that historically goes back to the founding of the modern government of Turkey when the newly formed government refused to give the Kurdish territory any level of autonomy. In Syria, the U.S. and E.U. formed a sort of alliance with the PKK because of their importance to the fight against the Islamic State. Many believe that the U.S. and E.U. would probably not have even legally categorized the PKK as a terrorist organization if it were not for Turkey's insistence and Turkey's strategic importance to the NATO alliance in that region.
Mahmut Tat was sentenced to 6 years and 10 months in prison by a Turkish court. But this was before Tat was extradited to Turkey. It appears that the court in Turkey decided the punishment before Tat had fled to Sweden. In Turkey, something exists called trial in absentia, which means the government will hold a trial for an accused person even if they have not been taken into custody, and are not present to defend themselves.
Baris Onay is another Turkish citizen who fled to Sweden that the Turkish government is seeking to extradite.
In the case of Baris Onay, it was open political activity in the editorial office of the left-wing newspaper Odak (Focusing), which made Turkey's security forces interested in him. Although the newspaper is legal in Turkey, both Baris Onay and his wife, who also worked at Odak, have twice been sentenced to several years in prison in unfair Kafka-like trials. After they were both released after spending six months in prison, they fled to Sweden in 2015.
Unlike Mahmut Tat, Baris Onay has received a permanent residence permit. He says he fears he could be next.
Turkish court imprisons PKK terrorist extradited by Sweden | Daily Sabah, Dec 3, 2022
https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/dip ... -by-sweden
"Stop the deportation of Mahmut to Turkey!" (postsen.com)
https://sweden.postsen.com/local/56373/ ... urkey.html
additional sources come from the Info-Türk website, and Taz (Die Tageszeitung), "Sweden and Finland joined NATO, Sweden extradites Kurds", Reinhard Wolff, Dec 4, 2022
- By ingliz
- By JohnRawls
- By Doug64