Twelve-year-old Helin Hasret Şen was killed on 12 October 2015 after shots were fired from a Cobra-type armoured vehicle while she was walking with her mother to a bakery in the Sur district of Diyarbakır, where a curfew was in force. Gunfire continued after Helin was shot, preventing her body from being removed from the street for some time. She was taken to Diyarbakır Selahaddin Eyyubi State Hospital about an hour later.
Before any investigative steps had been taken or evidence collected, the Diyarbakır Governor’s Office issued a statement saying that members of the organisation had attacked law enforcement officers and that a 12-year-old child had been injured and died during the attack.
The Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation, and access to the investigation file was restricted shortly afterwards. While the criminal investigation was still under way, the Istanbul Governor’s Office Provincial Police Disciplinary Board completed a separate administrative investigation into police officer Abdullah Ercan on 28 September 2017 and imposed a two-year suspension of seniority.
In a compensation case brought by the family against the Ministry of the Interior, the Diyarbakır 3rd Administrative Court found the Ministry 85 per cent at fault and awarded the family TRY 314,000 in compensation.
After the investigation file had remained restricted for almost four years, the first indictment was issued on 12 December 2018, seeking Abdullah Ercan’s conviction for killing with eventual intent (dolus eventualis). The indictment was returned because of an error in the provisions under which the charges had been brought.
Almost a year later, on 14 October 2019, a new indictment was issued, this time for causing death by negligence. The case was sent to the Diyarbakır 8th Criminal Court of First Instance, which found that the act could constitute killing with eventual intent and ruled that it lacked jurisdiction. Abdullah Ercan’s trial for causing death by negligence subsequently began before the Diyarbakır 1st Assize Court.
Abdullah Ercan did not attend the first hearing on 6 February 2020. The court rejected applications by several civil society organisations and the human rights and child rights centres of bar associations to join the proceedings.
Helin’s mother, Nazmiye Şen, said that there had been no clash on the day of the incident and that three shots had been fired towards them from the armoured vehicle. She said that the shooting continued after Helin was hit, leaving them unable to remove her from the street for a long time. The family’s lawyer, Abdullah Zeytun, argued that Ercan had fired at a specific target and requested that he be remanded in custody. The court rejected the request.
At the second hearing on 3 March 2020, Abdullah Ercan presented his defence by video link through SEGBİS. He denied shooting Helin Hasret Şen and said that there had been a clash that day. He said that he had fired three controlled shots at “reinforced concrete buildings where there were no civilians”.
When questioned by counsel for the complainants, Ercan said that he could not remember how many times he had previously given statements about the incident, whether he had reported the clash to the police, whether he had used a radio, or what his telephone number had been at the time.
Police officer Erdal Karabulut, who testified at the same hearing, confirmed that radio communications from the day had been examined and that there had been no reports of trenches being dug or of an armed clash. The court rejected the request to remand Ercan in custody but imposed a travel ban and asked the Diyarbakır Provincial Police Department to provide the evidence in its possession.
At the hearing on 24 September 2020, the court received letters from the Sur District Police Department and Sur District Gendarmerie Command stating that they had been unable to locate anyone who had witnessed or had information about the incident because the area had been completely demolished as part of an urban redevelopment project and was no longer inhabited.
Ercan’s defence counsel argued that criminal proceedings had been brought against him without the authorisation required to investigate a public official and requested that the trial be stayed. The Diyarbakır 1st Assize Court granted the request, put the case on hold, and decided to seek authorisation from the Diyarbakır Governor’s Office. An objection by counsel for the intervening parties was rejected by the Diyarbakır 2nd Assize Court on 23 November 2020.
On 7 April 2021, the Diyarbakır Governor’s Office authorised the investigation of Abdullah Ercan, and the trial resumed.
At the hearing on 1 February 2022, the court granted some of the lawyers’ requests for additional evidence. It asked the Diyarbakır Provincial Police Department to explain why footage between 08.30 and 09.15 was missing from the cameras of Cobra-11, the armoured vehicle from which Ercan had fired. The court also ordered that all calls made to the 155 police emergency line on the day of the incident be added to the case file and that footage of the incident be examined. It again rejected a request to remand Ercan in custody.
At the hearing on 5 April 2022, footage of the incident was shown in court. Counsel for the intervening parties said that the footage showed numerous civilians in the street, including children playing, and noted that the response from the Provincial Police Department showed no record of any emergency calls concerning an incident that day.
The family’s lawyers argued that the footage showed Ercan firing at a specific target and requested an expert examination of the recordings. The court referred the case to the relevant department of the Council of Forensic Medicine and requested a report on Helin Hasret Şen’s position in the footage and whether the shots fired from the armoured vehicle had struck her. The request to remand Ercan in custody was again rejected.
At the hearing on 6 September 2022, Ercan and his defence counsel argued that Helin had had her back to the armoured vehicle but had been shot in the face, and that the shot must therefore have been fired by the PKK. The court decided to await the report from the Council of Forensic Medicine.
At the hearing on 15 December 2022, the Council of Forensic Medicine’s response was added to the case file. The Council said that examining the footage fell outside its area of expertise. The court rejected requests by counsel for the intervening parties to have the footage examined by another specialist body and to remand Ercan in custody.
At the hearing on 18 May 2023, the public prosecutor submitted the opinion on the merits, seeking Abdullah Ercan’s conviction for causing Helin Hasret Şen’s death through conscious negligence. Counsel for the intervening parties argued that the camera footage from the armoured vehicle required detailed expert examination and that such an examination would show that the act amounted to intentional killing. The court rejected requests for a new expert report and for Ercan to be remanded in custody.
At the final hearing on 19 October 2023, the Diyarbakır 1st Assize Court found Abdullah Ercan guilty of causing death by conscious negligence. The court initially sentenced him to five years and six months in prison. Applying the provisions on conscious negligence, it increased the sentence to seven years and six months. It then applied a discretionary reduction based on Ercan’s personal history and the potential impact of the sentence on his future, resulting in a final sentence of six years and three months in prison.