Discretionary reductions taken to court of appeal
In the case of the revolutionary teacher Bahadır Grammeşin, a member of Eğitim Sen (Education and Science Workers’ Union) and ÖDP (Freedom and Solidarity Party) who was murdered in Kadıköy, Istanbul, on 9 May 2015 while attempting to prevent violence against women, the “good conduct” reductions applied to three separate sentences handed to the formerly fugitive defendant Hasan Özcan for “intentional killing,” “attempted intentional killing,” and “intentional injury” have been taken to the Court of Appeal.
Lawyers for the Grammeşin family and for Halil Bağrıyanık and Çağrı Konca, who were injured in the incident, applied to the Istanbul Anadolu 11th High Criminal Court to object to the discretionary reductions applied in favour of the defendant Özcan. The petition submitted by Özlem Özkan, one of the lawyers for the case, drew attention to the sentences handed down and the discretionary reductions applied. The lawyers requested that the discretionary reductions be overturned following the appellate review and that “the case be retried at the Court of Appeal,” that the defendant be punished in accordance with the local court’s verdict without any discretionary reductions, and if a retrial is not possible, that “the verdict be quashed regarding the discretionary reductions and the file be sent back to the local court.”
A STATE OF CONSTANT DENIAL
Lawyer Özkan made the following assessment to BirGün regarding the application: “Discretionary reduction is a practice carried out in favour of the defendant. They have started applying this reduction to anyone who shows up at a hearing, buttons their jacket, and wears a tie. Özcan, whose sentence was reduced, fled from the court for years. He even prevented justice from being served. We specifically highlighted this in the petition. Consequently, he does not even have any conduct here that would warrant a discretionary reduction. Our objection stems from this. Applying a discretionary reduction to a defendant who was caught and brought before justice years after fleeing is contrary to the spirit of that law. The defendant did not even show remorse during the trial. He was already in a state of constant denial and had been a fugitive for years. Therefore, we believe that discretionary reductions should not be applied.”
SEPARATE REDUCTIONS FOR THREE SENTENCES
Grammeşin was attacked by a large group in Kadıköy on 9 May 2015 and lost his life. In the lawsuit filed after the incident, defendants Erkan Çınar, Mert Nikelay, Murat Topraktepe, Yahya Burak Ataç, and Cemal Diri were sentenced to 25 years in prison each. Hasan Özcan, however, fled during a recess in the verdict hearing on 17 March 2017. Because Özcan, who was being tried for “intentional killing,” was a fugitive, his file was separated. Özcan was caught in Albania, extradited to Turkey in 2024, and arrested. While Özcan was being tried for the “intentional killing” of Grammeşin, a case was also opened against him for “attempted killing” regarding Konca.
In the verdict hearing held at the Istanbul Anadolu 11th High Criminal Court on 2 April 2026, Özcan was sentenced to life imprisonment for intentional killing. However, the court applied a “good conduct reduction” in favour of the defendant’s past and the potential effects of the sentence on the defendant’s future, reducing the sentence to 25 years. Regarding Konca, the perpetrator was sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime of attempted intentional killing. The court, stating that the incident remained at the level of injury, reduced the sentence again to 12 years. The court further reduced this sentence to 10 years, again citing the defendant’s past and the effects on his future. Özcan was also sentenced for intentional injury against Bağrıyanık. This sentence was also reduced to 5 years through the application of a reduction.
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Takdiri indirimler İstinaf’ta, published in BirGün newspaper on May 13, 2026.
To read the full story from the source: BirGün
