France partially removes confidentiality of documents on Paris massacre
WEWS CENTER (DİHA) - The French government has announced that they will be lifting the confidentiality of some documents related to the murder of three Kurdish women in Paris in2013.
On January 9, 2013, an assassin entered Paris' Kurdistan Information Office, shooting dead three Kurdish women and political activists: Fidan Doğan, Sakine Cansız and Leyla Şaylemez. Sakine was among the founders of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' party). Kurds have long complained about the lack of action from the French government.
Lawyers in the case first requested the documents in the massacre, which French intelligence has maintained as confidential, in September 2014. The judge approved the request, accepting that perpetrator Ömer Güney had possible ties to the Turkish MİT intelligence service. Ongoing French investigations say there is a strong presumption of MİT involvement.
The gunpowder in killer Ömer Güney's bag has been the most important evidence pointing to his guilt in the case so far. The fact that for at least a year he had been infiltrating the Kurdistan Information Office points to the long premeditation of the attack. Ömer Güney made several secret visits to Turkey in 2012. Sound recordings of Güney discussing the murder with MİT officials have also leaked, including a recording of MİT explicitly giving him the order to kill.
According to Le Monde, the French intelligence service has now lifted the confidentiality of its documents on the case, in a development that likely won't please Ankara. Many of the seven documents in the archives are severely redacted, but officials say they may increase the amount of information released in the future. Antoine Comte, lawyer for the families of the slain women, said that he spoke with French Prime Minister Manuel Valls in March about the need for more information in the case.
"For France to stay silent on these crimes is to give foreign states the right to kill with impunity on French soil," said Comte, "and it would be insanity for us to think something like this could not happen again."
For the French government to suspect the Turkish state in the case opens a sensitive matter, according to Le Monde. There have been previous tensions between the two states since 2011, especially in relation to their cooperation against fundamentalist religious groups. In one of the documents released from confidentiality by Le Monde, the French external intelligence service expressed frustration about MİT's own accusations against them and said that their respect for their Turkish counterparts was declining in spite of the importance of the Kurdish resolution process.
French Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve recently traveled to Turkey in March for a visit related to Turkey's deportation of three French nationals. The visit apparently somewhat repaired the relationship between the two countries. Allegedly, promises were made to end efforts on the topic of the PKK.
There seems to be a generally change in the calculations of the French state related to Kurds and Kurdish militants. Recently, a Paris judge said in a March 24 case related to Kurds that, "at this point, we need to add the PKK's actions against Daesh to the equation."
The investigations related to the Paris massacre, say sources in the court, should be over before this summer.
(cm/nt)
