The defendant in the case of Sevag Balikci, an Armenian citizen of Turkey who was shot dead during his compulsory military service, has been sentenced to 16 years and 8 months in prison, according to the Bianet news agency.
Balikci was killed on April 24, 2011, the 96th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. On the day he was killed, he had 20 days to complete his service in the Kozluk district of the southeastern Batman province.
The Diyarbakir 2nd Air Force Command Military Court sentenced Kivanc Agaoglu to four years, five months and 10 days in prison for the premeditated and reckless murder on March 26, 2013.
The Balıkci family appealed the case at the Court of Cassation, which overturned the court ruling on procedural grounds.
“I attach importance to this. At last, we have seen that a hate crime against Armenians in the country resulted in a court sentencing the defendant,” Garo Paylan, an Armenian member of the Turkish Parliament representing the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) told Bianet.
However, he said, Turkey needs a “climate” where such hate crimes would not happen and it has not achieved this yet. “We must make political openings and create a climate where no one is targeted by hate crimes.”
Paylan also mentioned the killing of Hrant Dink, the trial for which has been continuing for 13 years. He expressed hope the decision on Balikci’s s killing sets a precedent for other hate crimes cases.
This vile and racist Turkish murderer should have gotten life behind bars at minimum. In a just world he would be given a bitter taste of his own medicine. In that terrorist Turkish cesspool many people get a lot more for a lot less. There are many cases in which people exercising their right to “free expression”, an oxymoron and in reality non-existent in that part of the world, are charged for insulting their fascist leaders, financially sued and their properties confiscated, labeled as terrorists, and sent to jail to rot.
What’s particularly important about this case is that this Armenian conscript was not just murdered for being an Armenian but also that he was murdered symbolically on a day commemorating the premeditated and state-sponsored mass extermination and genocide of 1,500,000 fellow Armenians. This murder was against all Armenians through murdering this young man. This goes to show that these Central Asian terrorist nomads have not changed in a thousand years and I don’t think they ever will. The cold-blooded assassination of Hrant Dink on January 19, 2007 is another example of this. This is all as a result of institutional brainwashing of their unsuspecting populations from very early age with deliberate intentions of turning them into hate mongers against anyone and anything non-Turkish. In essence, it is a form of defense mechanism to protect their ill-gotten gains, lands and properties, from the descendants of their non-Turkish victims, the indigenous and dwindling Christian populations in particular.