The police officer who was working at the crossing point booth at which the five Greek Cypriots who were arrested in the north last month crossed before being arrested, appeared as a witness in their case on Friday, with his claims put under the microscope by defence lawyers.
The five Greek Cypriots had entered the north in the same car from the British Dhekelia base through the Strovilia crossing point, near Famagusta, on July 19, though the police and prosecutors have claimed that only four identity cards were handed over for inspection on the Turkish Cypriot side of the crossing point. The five Greek Cypriots deny this.
As such, one of the five Greek Cypriots stands accused of having entered the north illegally, while the other four stand accused of having aided and abetted that illegal entry.
On Friday, the officer, named as Hakan Ozkanturk, told the court that the official instructions given to crossing point staff have remained unchanged since the crossing points first opened in 2003, when non-Turkish Cypriots used to fill out a form upon entry and have that form stamped by the police.
That practice was abolished in 2015, but the guidelines were never updated to offer another secondary form of record keeping.
The defence then asked him how long it would have taken for him to ask the Greek Cypriots to roll down their car’s rear window down so he could see inside, given that it had been stated in previous hearings that it would have been impossible for the police on duty to discern how many people were in the Greek Cypriots’ car because of the car’s tinted windows.
According to newspaper Ozgur Gazete’s editor-in-chief Pinar Barut, who was present in court for most of Friday’s proceedings, Ozkanturk had said in response that July 19 was an “extremely busy” day at the crossing point, and that for this reason, “none of us had the luxury of winding down windows and seeing how many people were inside”.
‘If we had done that, it would take too long for vehicles to cross’
“If we had done that, it would take too long for vehicles to cross. We would not have been able to do it. Thousands of vehicles were crossing. That is why I did not open their windows,” Ozkanturk is quoted as saying.
He then reportedly insisted that the Greek Cypriots had only given him four identity cards and said himself that given the fact that they were known to have crossed regularly, he had “accepted” that even though he could not see into the back of the car, there were in all likelihood four people in the car.
Following a short back-and-forth, the defence argued that as such, Ozkanturk had been neglectful. He denied this but did accept that “mistakes can happen from time to time”.
He said that if a mistake is made by an officer at the crossing point, a “correction form” can be filled out either by them or by whoever notices the mistake.
Examples of frequently made errors at crossing points include that while non-Turkish Cypriots are typically allocated 30-day permitted stays on the north’s electronic entry system, a crossing point officer may sometimes mistype the number of days as “3”, meaning that people who travel to the north for long weekends are effectively flagged as illegal immigrants.
“In such cases, we fill out a correction form and do not victimise the person,” Ozkanturk told the court.
He was then asked about the frequency and veracity of mistakes made by officers at crossing points and swiftly interjected that he “did not make any mistake” regarding the entry of the five Greek Cypriots into the north on July 19.
The defence then followed this up, asking how many people typically cross through the Strovilia crossing point on any given day.
To this, he said that between 6,000 and 7,000 vehicles typically cross on weekends and between 4,000 and 5,000 typically cross on weekdays.
Then, the defence asked what hours he worked, and he responded that he worked 12-hour shifts, either from 8am to 8pm or from 8pm to 8am, with the Greek Cypriots having crossed at around 4.15pm on July 19, prompting a response from the defence.
“Thousands of vehicles cross across a 12-hour shift, so how do you remember their car? How do you remember that there were four people?”
He was thinking of buying one for his wife
He told the court that he remembered that specific car because it was a Honda, and he also drives a Honda, and that he was thinking of buying one for his wife.
“We were looking for an economical car at the time, and we were looking at one just like that one … The car we were thinking of buying was the same as the one used by the Greek Cypriots. So, when it arrived at the crossing point, it caught my attention … That’s why this car stuck with me,” he said.
In addition, he said, he had initially made another mistake when the car crossed into the north, effectively accidentally recording that it had crossed twice, once under the driver’s name, and again under the names of one of the passengers.
He said he had then noticed this later in the day and “corrected this error during later checks” of the recordings he had made.
The defence then asked how he had realised that error, and he said that he checks his records towards the end of every working day.
On July 19, he said, he had made this check at around 6pm, just shy of two hours after the Greek Cypriots had crossed into the north.
At this point, the defence asked, “how did you find the time to go back and check hundreds of recordings on a day when you were so busy that you could not even ask them to open their windows so you could see them?”.
His response was that “sometimes we take coffee breaks or toilet breaks at work, and when I had the time, I did it”.
Barut said that “no evidence was presented in court” to prove that Ozkanturk had initially made a mistake and corrected it later.
‘Would an investigation launched against you?’
He was then asked how many people he saw in the car, and he said he saw the two people sat in the front, before the defence asked him what the consequences would be if he had failed to record the entry of a Greek Cypriot into the north.
“If you neglected your duty and recorded four entries for a vehicle which had five passengers in it, would an investigation be launched against you?”, the defence asked, with Ozkanturk responding in the affirmative.
The defence then listed the names of four people who had been fired from their roles at crossing points after making mistakes in recording entries and exits.
“Therefore, if you say ‘yes, I made a mistake, there were five people, they gave me five identity cards, but I only recorded four of them’, an investigation will be launched against you, and you may lose your job as a result of this investigation,” the defence said.
Ozkanturk then insisted again that he was sure he had received only four identity cards and that he had never made a mistake of such a magnitude before, though the defence remained unconvinced.
‘This case would never have happened’
“If an investigation had been launched against you on the grounds that you had made such a mistake, you would be in the dock today, not on the witness stand, and this case would never have happened, and these people would never have been arrested. You yourself are putting the blame on these people out of fear of getting sacked, being investigated, or being subjected to any disciplinary or criminal investigation,” the defence said.
Eventually, though he still refused to admit that there had been any possibility of him making a mistake, Ozkanturk said that if he had made a mistake, “an investigation could be launched, and I do not know what the outcome would be”.
Later in the day, the public were filed out of court before the conclusion of proceedings, as a classified map of Strovilia used by the Turkish military was to be presented in court.
After being ordered to leave, Barut said that one of the Greek Cypriots, a 68-year-old man, has lost “about 10 kilograms” since being arrested, while the remaining four have all lost between three and five kilograms.
She added that the prosecution had said they would call a total of 20 witnesses, and that this number may yet rise further.
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