A Turkish court has reduced the prison sentence of a police officer convicted of killing a Kurdish teenager with an armored vehicle during protests in 2013, following a second retrial in a case that has sparked criticism over leniency toward security forces.
According to the Mezopotamya News Agency, the Diyarbakır 1st High Criminal Court sentenced police officer Selahattin Korkmaz to more than two years in prison for “causing death by negligence.” Lawyers for the family of the victim, Şahin Öner, criticized the ruling, saying the court failed to properly consider key evidence, including witness testimony, hospital records and forensic reports. They said Korkmaz should have been convicted of “voluntary manslaughter” and vowed to appeal.
Korkmaz reportedly drove an armored police vehicle into a group of protesters in Diyarbakır on February 10, 2013, hitting and killing 19-year-old Öner. Witnesses said Öner was taken to a police station instead of a hospital after he was injured, where officers took his fingerprints before he was finally transported by ambulance after his condition deteriorated.
Officials initially claimed Öner had been killed by the explosion of a grenade he was attempting to throw at police. A later forensic re-examination conducted after objections from the family concluded that he had in fact been crushed by an armored vehicle.
In 2021 the court sentenced Korkmaz to more than four years in prison for “causing death by conscious negligence,” reducing the sentence for what it described as his “good conduct” during the trial, even though the defendant never appeared in court.
Both sides appealed the ruling, and the Diyarbakır Regional Court of Justice later overturned the verdict, describing the incident as a “simple traffic accident” and ordering a retrial, citing insufficient examination of the evidence.
In March 2025 the court again convicted Korkmaz of “causing death by negligence,” sentencing him to more than three years in prison.
Following another appeal, the appellate court ruled that the sentence was excessive and ordered another retrial, which resulted in the latest ruling reducing the prison term to just over two years.
The case has attracted criticism from human rights advocates who say investigations into deaths caused by security forces in Turkey often result in reduced charges, lenient sentences or prolonged judicial proceedings that delay accountability.
