Lawyer: Revised charge against deported Turk is defective

Ismet Oczelick’s lawyers plan to seek an outright acquittal on a criminal charge against him while also, separately, challenging his deportation to Turkey.

PETALING JAYA: Lawyers for Ismet Oczelick, who was deported together with two others to Turkey last week, will file an application to strike out a criminal charge on grounds that it is defective.

Counsel Rosli Dahlan said the application would be made next week.

“We will ask for his acquittal and return of the RM4,000 bail money,” he told FMT.

He said the amended charge filed by the prosecution today before magistrate Siti Radziah Kamaruddin was also flawed.

The revised charge states that Ismet obstructed a policeman from carrying out his duty. The earlier charge stated that Ismet, with four others, attempted to bite the arm of an Immigration officer.

Rosli said the court was informed, during case management today, that the prosecution could no longer frame a charge as Ismet was no longer in Malaysia to defend himself in person.

He said the deportation of Ismet to Turkey was unlawful as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) here had issued a pass to Ismet to remain in Malaysia.

Ismet’s other lawyer, Muhammad Faizal Faiz Mohd Hasani, said they would challenge his deportation, adding that the Turkish national’s status as a refugee should enable him to choose which country he wished to go to if the Malaysian government refused to have him here.

Faizal said this right was granted under Article 3 of the Asian-African Legal Consultative Organisation’s Principles on Status of Treatment of Refugees.

As Malaysia and Turkey were among the international organisation’s 47 member states, Faizal said, they should abide by this.

“We will file this application on June 1,” he told reporters when met at the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex today.

“You (the Malaysian government) can’t simply deport Ismet. He’s a refugee who has a valid UNHCR card.

“You should have given him the opportunity to say that he didn’t want to go back to Turkey, and wanted to go somewhere else instead. So we take the position that the deportation is unlawful.”

Ismet was first arrested on Dec 13 last year, after he allegedly stopped Immigration officers, who were said to be dressed in plainclothes, from taking away his passport at his son Suheyl’s house.

Suheyl and three of his colleagues from an international school had tried to help Ismet. When police arrived, all five were arrested and later charged with using criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging his duties.

Four of them were released on bail but Ismet ended up staying in the Sungai Buloh prison for 53 days.

He was released on Jan 31, after being conferred refugee status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to move around until his trial was dispensed with.

However, earlier this month, he was detained again and deported to Turkey, together with Turgay Karaman, 43; Ihsan Aslan, 39. Malaysian police said all three were a threat to national security.

Reports from elsewhere suggest that they had been deported to Turkey because they were believed to be part of a movement called the Gulen Movement that was linked with attempting to overthrow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. -FMT