Turgut Okyay (born 1941

Tut Tut may refer to: __NOTOC__ People * Tutankhamun, an Egyptian pharaoh often referred to as "King Tut" * Bernard Bartzen (born 1927), American tennis player nicknamed "Tut" * Tut Imlay (1902–1976), National Football League player (1926–1927) * T ...

, Adıyaman) is a Turkish judge and politician and known for being the judge who presided over the

State Security Court The State Security Court is a judicial institution in Jordan. It deals with cases regarding state security, but also with drug offences and other types of cases. The defendants in the court can be both military personnel as well as civilians. The C ...

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

which condemned

Abdullah Öcalan Abdullah Öcalan ( ; ; born 4 April 1949), also known as Apo (short for Abdullah in Turkish and Kurdish for "uncle"), is a political prisoner and founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Öcalan was based in Syria from ...

to death.

Education

He attended high school in

Adana Adana (; ; ) is a major city in southern Turkey. It is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the Mediterranean Sea. The administrative seat of Adana Province, Adana province, it has a population of 2.26 million. Adana lies in the heart ...

and studied law at the Faculty of Law of the

University of Ankara Ankara University ( tr, Ankara Üniversitesi) is a public university in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. It was the first higher education institution founded in Turkey after the formation of the republic in 1923. The university has 40 vocati ...

from which he graduated in 1964. After graduation, he served in the military service for two years.

Professional career

He entered the public administration and served as a judge in several cities before being appointed in 1994 as a judge at the State Security Court of Ankara. During the

Trial of Abdullah Öcalan The trial of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), began on 31 May 1999 and concluded on 29 June with a Death sentence for treason and separatism. Öcalan was captured in February 1999 in Nairobi, Kenya and brought to ...

the leader of the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of south ...

(PKK), he presided over the State Security Court which sentenced Öcalan to death on the 29 June 1999. He stated he personally was against the death penalty but had to apply it. In the year 2000 he was appointed to the Court of Cassation from which he retired in 2006.

Political career

In February 2015 he joined the Workers Party of Turkey (IP) led by Doğu Perinçek. After the party changed its name in Patriotic party (VP) in the party congress the same month, Okyay became its vice president and

candidate for the parliamentary election of 2015. In his electoral campaign he advocated for a Turkish worldwide leadership in the fields of

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

and democracy. He was not elected.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turgut Okyay Turkish judges Turkish politicians Ankara University Faculty of Law alumni 1941 births People from Adıyaman Province Living people