Arrested Turkish Scholar Denies Smuggling Charges
Monday 1, August 2005
Armenialiberty
By Karine Kalantarian and Emil Danielyan
A Turkish scholar {Yektan Turkyilmaz} arrested last June for allegedly attempting to smuggle rare books out of Armenia has pleaded not guilty to extraordinary criminal charges that could land him in prison for up to eight years, his Armenian lawyer {Vartuhi Elbakian } said on Monday.
[...] Armenian authorities have rejected her petitions to release Yektan Turkyilmaz[...]. They also seem to have ignored protests from a group of Turkish intellectuals [...].
[...]
The attorney also said that investigators from Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) gave “no concrete reasons” for the rejection of her appeals for Turkyilmaz’s release on bail. The petition was accompanied by personal guarantees from an opposition member of Armenia’s parliament, Shavarsh Kocharian, and a renowned U.S. historian of Armenian descent, Richard Hovannisian.
[...]
Kocharian’s spokesman, Victor Soghomonian, told RFE/RL that the Armenian leader will examine and react to the letter only after returning from his two-week vacation which began on Monday. It is still not clear when Turkyilmaz will go on trial. According to his lawyer, the authorities have already chosen a Yerevan court of first instance that will hear the case.
[...]
Individuals familiar with the case claim that the NSS [...] considered charging Turkyilmaz with espionage before bringing the smuggling case. Giving weight to this theory is the fact that the suspect is being held in the ex-KGB’s basement jail, the most tightly guarded in the country, and that law-enforcement officials confiscated electronic copies of the archival documents which he studied in Yerevan.
[...]
Among the individuals questioned by the NSS as witnesses in the case are three ethnic Armenian citizens of Turkey who live and study in Yerevan. The security agency has so far refused to divulge or comment on details of the investigation.
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
Armenialiberty
By Karine Kalantarian and Emil Danielyan
A Turkish scholar {Yektan Turkyilmaz} arrested last June for allegedly attempting to smuggle rare books out of Armenia has pleaded not guilty to extraordinary criminal charges that could land him in prison for up to eight years, his Armenian lawyer {Vartuhi Elbakian } said on Monday.
[...] Armenian authorities have rejected her petitions to release Yektan Turkyilmaz[...]. They also seem to have ignored protests from a group of Turkish intellectuals [...].
[...]
The attorney also said that investigators from Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) gave “no concrete reasons” for the rejection of her appeals for Turkyilmaz’s release on bail. The petition was accompanied by personal guarantees from an opposition member of Armenia’s parliament, Shavarsh Kocharian, and a renowned U.S. historian of Armenian descent, Richard Hovannisian.
[...]
Kocharian’s spokesman, Victor Soghomonian, told RFE/RL that the Armenian leader will examine and react to the letter only after returning from his two-week vacation which began on Monday. It is still not clear when Turkyilmaz will go on trial. According to his lawyer, the authorities have already chosen a Yerevan court of first instance that will hear the case.
[...]
Individuals familiar with the case claim that the NSS [...] considered charging Turkyilmaz with espionage before bringing the smuggling case. Giving weight to this theory is the fact that the suspect is being held in the ex-KGB’s basement jail, the most tightly guarded in the country, and that law-enforcement officials confiscated electronic copies of the archival documents which he studied in Yerevan.
[...]
Among the individuals questioned by the NSS as witnesses in the case are three ethnic Armenian citizens of Turkey who live and study in Yerevan. The security agency has so far refused to divulge or comment on details of the investigation.
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
posted by Vahe Balabanian at 7:35 AM
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