Diyarbakır 5th High Criminal Court of Diyarbakır Nevruz celebrations in 2017 Kurkut made in the moment of being killed by police as a college student in Mesopotamian Kemal Abdurrahman editor of the agency to the sky “propaganda for a terrorist organization” charges explained the rationale given a prison sentence. After photographing Kurkut’s murder, Gök was sentenced to 25 years and 6 months in prison for “membership in a terrorist organization” and “propagandizing for a terrorist organization”. The court, which was sentenced to 22 months and 22 days in prison, considered Gök’s posts in Syria containing photos of armed people as evidence of a crime.
The court, which concluded that Abdurrahman Gok was a journalist and that he took these photos as part of his journalistic activity, made his defense ‘in order to get rid of crime and punishment’, stated that Gok’s defense was not respected.
The decision also stated that Gok’s prison sentence was not postponed on the grounds that there was no positive conviction before the court that he would not commit a crime again as a result of the convictions in the criminal record and the trial.
Evaluating the reasoned decision, journalist Abdurrahman Gok’s lawyer Rasul Temur said, “Although we presented the documents and identity samples that show that Gok is a journalist at the entire trial stage to the court, along with news printouts containing photos contained in the file, we see that the court did not discuss the relevant documents in its reasoned decision. This situation actually shows that the court acted with the preliminary acceptance of sentencing without discussing the concrete evidence in an original way within the scope of the file.”