The policeman accused of killing Kemal Kurkut in 2018 was acquitted on Tuesday at the 12th hearing of the trial which was held in Diyarbakır (Amed), Turkey. The journalist Abdurrahman Gök, who photographed the Kurkut shooting incident, however, now faces trial.

In 2018, the police shot and killed Kemal Kurkut during the Newroz celebrations in Diyarbakır (Amed). The police first accused Kurkut of being a “suicide bomber” but it was reporter Abdurrahman Gök’s pictures – that were taken at the time the shooting took place – that dispelled such a claim.

The trial’s outcome was that the police officer accused of the crime was released by court decision whilst the reporter who took the said pictures now faces seven to twenty years in prison for having done so. His pictures also showed a group of policemen running after Kurkut, firing their guns. Kurkut fell to the ground and eventually died in hospital. The accused police officer was released on the grounds that “no definitive and convincing evidence was obtained”.