https://www.duvarenglish.com/dsp-le...ah-executive-serving-life-sentence-news-62334
The Democratic Left Party, which recently joined the ruling alliance, has defended President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s move to pardon prisoner Mehmet Emin Alpsoy, a Hizbullah member who was serving aggravated life imprisonment.
DSP leader Önder Aksakal said that it is the “constitutional right” of the President to pardon prisoners and criticism with regards to this issue was instrumentalized and turned into “political material.”
“This is a constitutional right. The President can use this (presidential pardon) when they desire. Can they use this for (jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party leader) Abdullah Öcalan tomorrow? Well, they might,” Aksakal said on May 3 on Sözcü TV.
Aksakal said that the presidential pardon was also used by former presidents and continued: “The President can’t say, ‘Let this person die because he is from HÜDA-PAR or PKK.’ It was again Erdoğan who pardoned those tried in the Ergenekon (case).”
In a May 2-dated presidential decree, Erdoğan pardoned four prisoners, including the 71-year-old Alpsoy who was said to have “aged.” Turkish newspapers referred to Alpsoy as Hizbullah’s “military wing leader” and said that the Hizbullah convict tortured and killed three people in the capital Ankara in the 1990s and then hid corpses in the basement of his brother’s house….
The Democratic Left Party, which recently joined the ruling alliance, has defended President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s move to pardon prisoner Mehmet Emin Alpsoy, a Hizbullah member who was serving aggravated life imprisonment.
DSP leader Önder Aksakal said that it is the “constitutional right” of the President to pardon prisoners and criticism with regards to this issue was instrumentalized and turned into “political material.”
“This is a constitutional right. The President can use this (presidential pardon) when they desire. Can they use this for (jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party leader) Abdullah Öcalan tomorrow? Well, they might,” Aksakal said on May 3 on Sözcü TV.
Aksakal said that the presidential pardon was also used by former presidents and continued: “The President can’t say, ‘Let this person die because he is from HÜDA-PAR or PKK.’ It was again Erdoğan who pardoned those tried in the Ergenekon (case).”
In a May 2-dated presidential decree, Erdoğan pardoned four prisoners, including the 71-year-old Alpsoy who was said to have “aged.” Turkish newspapers referred to Alpsoy as Hizbullah’s “military wing leader” and said that the Hizbullah convict tortured and killed three people in the capital Ankara in the 1990s and then hid corpses in the basement of his brother’s house….
