Turkish court sentences Syrian Syriac fighters to life imprisonment
TEL TAMR, Syria (North Press) – On Thursday, spokesman of the Syriac Military Council, Aram Hanna, accused the Turkish court of forcing their fighters, who were arrested two years ago, to sign papers in Turkish language before trialing them.
In late 2019, the Turkish army and the affiliated armed opposition factions arrested fighters of the Syriac Military Council while defending the city of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) against the Turkish invasion.
On June 29, the Syriac Military Council, one of SDF formations, issued a statement saying that Turkey sentenced to life imprisonment three of their fighters after it retried them three months ago.
A Turkish court sentenced the three arrested fighters to life imprisonment, after forcing them to sign papers in the court in Turkish without translating them into Arabic.
“The Turkish court sentenced our fighters at first to more than 7 years, before it retried them and sentenced them to life imprisonment,” Hanna told North Press.
The fighters were accused of “being affiliated with terrorist factions and destabilizing the Turkish national security,” according to Hanna.
Hanna added that the court sentence was a gross violation against the Fourth Geneva Convention, describing it as “validation of the international laws and humanitarian norms.”
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
The spokesman of the Syriac Military Council expressed his refusal of the Turkish claims about their fighters of being affiliated with terrorist groups.”
The Commander called on the actors in the Syrian crisis and the international community to assume their responsibilities and to stop the violations of Turkey.