Lawyers from Turkey, Palestine, Indonesia, Tunis, Egypt, France, Belgium, Greece, Jordan, South Africa, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Algeria and Bahrain were present to follow the hearing. Within the full day hearing, plaintiffs had given testimonies regarding the time of attack, questioning that was done, imprisonment, events which took place at the airport and other crimes and felonies that were committed. The defendants were represented by a lawyer provided by the Barons association of Istanbul.
The 2012/264 numbered Mavi Marmara case is in the process of being heard at the 7th High Court in which previous head of Israeli Armed Forces Gavriel Ashkenazi, Chief Commander of Israeli Naval forces Eliezer Marom, Head of Intelligence Amos Yadlin and Chief of Aviation Intelligence Avishai Levi are being asked to be sentenced to various crimes including “Willful killing”, “attempt of willful killing”, “intentionally causing serious injury to body or health”, “plundering”, “hijacking or seizing maritime vessels”, “intentionally causing damage to property”, “restriction of freedom of expression and instigating violent crime”, with a sum of 32 years imprisonment being expected for each defendant.
Plaintiff lawyers requested that a warrant of arrest, extradition of defendants to Turkey and a red notice be granted against the defendants. The prosecution have decided to postpone ‘issuing a warrant of arrest’ and have also postponed the hearing to 10.00 a.m., 27 March 2014.
The postponing of a warrant of arrest being issued and the postponing of the case to 5 months later was seen as a disappointment by Plaintiffs present. Plaintiffs had stated that ‘Enough evidence was present to issue a warrant of arrest according to the principles of law. Defendants were also notified of the court hearing and have spoken about this over many media sources’ expressing their great disappointment with the result.
The postponing of the court hearing to 5 months later was reasoned to be the congestion of cases the prosecution is facing. Plaintiffs are asking the ministry of internal affairs to ‘free up the congestion caused by many cases being looked over by the prosecution’ as this is one of the most important cases to date. Plaintiffs stated that ‘Within the year of 2014 only two seating could take place within the fifth hearing which only limits to twenty plaintiffs being able to testify. With so many plaintiffs needing to testify, is it wanted for this case to continue for many years?’
Before leaving the court hearing, plaintiffs and the family of the deceased passing away on the Mavi Marmara ship have expressed ‘they will follow up the case both on domestic level and international levels with means of the court case present at the International Criminal Court (ICC). They continued stating the embargo upon Gaza has to end and there is no doubt they will not give up following up the case and have the defendants responsible prosecuted for their actions’
