ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Two people convicted of being accessories to the murder of a Turkish official in Erbil have been freed after a court ordered their release from prison with time served, according to one of their lawyers. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) arrested seven people since July last year in relation to the killing of Turkish official Osman Kose at a restaurant in Erbil on July 17, 2019. Sidqi Karim Khan and Ayub Ibrahim Mulla were each sentenced to two years for being accessories to murder but after their lawyers appealed the decision, Erbil’s Appellate Court decided on September 15 to reduce their sentence to one year and release them, Khan’s lawyer Fakhir Smko Rasheed told Rudaw on Tuesday. “Two of them, Mazloum Mohammed Zaki and Abdulrahman Shahin, are the main culprits of the incident and have been sentenced to be executed,” added the lawyer, who noted one other has already been released. The prisoners on death row were sentenced in February. At around 11:30 a.m. local time on July 17, 2019, three individuals pulled up in a Toyota Yaris outside the HuQQabaz restaurant in Erbil’s upmarket Empire World complex, where the Turkish official was dining, and was subsequently shot dead. Two Kurdish civilians, Nariman Othman Ali and Bashdar Ramadhan, were shot by a second gunman, also carrying a suppressed pistol. It is not clear whether the civilians were trying to intervene or escape. Turkish officials were quick to blame the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) for the attack. The group later denied their involvement, but praised the perpetrators. Kurdish counter-terrorism units in July identified Zaki as Mazlum Dag, the brother of Dersim Dag, the pro-Kurdish People’s’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy for Turkey’s Diyarbakir and the youngest MP in this session of Turkish parliament. The PKK is a Kurdish armed group which has struggled for the political and cultural rights of Kurds in Turkey for decades. Turkey considers it a terrorist organization. Additional reporting by Shkar Ahmed
