Turkey releases pro-Kurdish lawmaker
A Turkish court decided to release the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Ferhat Encu after more than three months of imprisonment on Wednesday, his party announced.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – Turkish authorities on Wednesday released the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Ferhat Encu upon his lawyer's request after months of imprisonment, his party announced.
HDP's Twitter page said Encu's "lawless" jailing ended, as it vowed that their struggle to free all other MPs would go on.
The charges against Encu stand as his trial by a Sirnak court will resume at a later date, said Kurdistan24 Diyarbakir Bureau.
A prosecutor in Sirnak accusing Encu of membership in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and disseminating propaganda on behalf of it was asking for up to 22 years in prison.
Police had arrested Encu alongside the HDP's co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas, Figen Yuksekdag and nine other lawmakers during night raids on their houses in several provinces in November 2016.
The MP who represents his home province of Sirnak at the Turkish Parliament had since been held in pre-trial detention at the Kandira prison in the city of Kocaeli, east of Istanbul.
With the release of Encu, 11 HDP lawmakers including its co-chairs Demirtas and Yuksekdag remain in jail as Turkey prepares to go to a referendum in April over a parliament-passed bill giving President Recep Tayyip Erdogan executive powers.
Encu got into politics after Turkish warplanes killed 11 of his relatives including one of his brothers in a deadly air assault in late 2011 near the village of Roboski in Sirnak on the border with the Kurdistan Region.
Editing by Ava Homa