Mother of slain female Syrian Kurdish politician demands international trial

Suad Mustafa, the mother of a Syrian Kurdish politician who was infamously killed by Turkish-backed groups in October, told Kurdistan 24 that she wants those responsible for her daughter’s murder to appear in front of an international court.

BRUSSELS (Kurdistan 24) - Suad Mustafa, the mother of a Syrian Kurdish politician who was infamously killed by Turkish-backed groups in October, told Kurdistan 24 that she wants those responsible for her daughter’s murder to appear in front of an international court.

“I do not believe that the perpetrators have been arrested. But if so, there are international human rights courts, and they should be handed over to these organizations,” she said. “If anyone has been arrested in this case, they must be tried in human rights courts, and a just decision must be taken.” 

Hevrin Khalaf, her daughter, was summarily executed by Turkish-backed groups in mid-October as part of Ankara’s cross-border attack on northern Syria, as reported by the media and human rights organizations. 

Read More: Pro-gov Turkish media hail execution of Syrian Kurdish politician as 'success' 

“My call is to women around the world; to the Kurds, Arabs, and Europeans – they must join hands and together they must say to Erdogan: We are all Hevrin Khalaf,” she said earlier on Thursday during a speech at a Kurdish conference held at the EU parliament in Brussels. 

Hevrin Khalaf, the slain secretary general of the Future Syria Party. (Photo: Hawar News Agency)
Hevrin Khalaf, the slain secretary general of the Future Syria Party. (Photo: Hawar News Agency)

“The international community must have protected politicians and political activists; my daughter Hevrin was a civil politician, yet she was assassinated by Turkish forces on the soil of her homeland Rojava,” Mustafa later told Kurdistan 24. 

“She was leading the efforts in the Syria Future Party, a party which worked to ensure a free and democratic future Syria with all religions, ethnicities, and minorities. Yet Hevrin was assassinated in a territory under the auspices of the US, and the US did not hold Turkey and Erdogan accountable for that crime.”   

Therefore, she called on the UN, the US, human rights organizations, and international courts for justice, saying, “I want Erdogan to be held responsible for this crime. Hevrin devoted her life to unity and brotherhood of all people in the region. Every perpetrator should be tried for her assassination.” 

“They ambushed my daughter’s car on Oct. 12, 2019, and committed this horrific war crime. Regardless of all humane ethics, they could have killed her with one bullet, yet they tore apart her body. When I uncovered her body, it was all gone. All her body was in pieces.”

So far, three US delegations visited Hevrin’s mother since the killing, Mustafa said. “The first delegation told me that the US has sanctioned Turkey because of Hevrin’s killing. I didn’t believe that and I told them even if it was true, it would not be correct.”

“I told the Americans that the US would symbolically do that, and sanctions might hurt the people, not the government. I told them a real reaction would be to expel Turkey from NATO to stop the bloodshed carried out by Turkey in Rojava [Syrian Kurdistan].”

On Oct. 23, the US lifted sanctions on Turkey imposed nine days earlier after a US-Turkish ceasefire in northeastern Syria became permanent.

Mustafa underlined that she does not trust Turkey, nor the Turkish-backed groups that killed her daughter, to hold the perpetrators to account. 

“Because the militants who killed Hevrin were operating under the general command of the Turkish state and military, and Turkish officials have their hands in this crime as much as the very individuals who murdered Hevrin.”

“If anyone has been or will be arrested by Turkey for Hevrin’s case, Turkey could eliminate those individuals to wash their hands off this crime. I specifically [want to] see Turkish President Erdogan to be handed over to an international court to be tried for the killing of my daughter.”

She concluded, “A war crime has been committed against humanity, and the very same person who ordered those militants, must be held accountable in a just court.”

Editing by John J. Catherine