Life Term Sought for Turkish Policeman Over Protester Killing

Turkish prosecutors on Wednesday sought life imprisonment for a police officer accused of beating a teenager to death during last year's mass anti-government protests, media reported.

Ali Ismail Korkmaz, 19, died after being pummeled with baseball bats and truncheons in the western city of Eskisehir on June 2.

The attack was caught by security cameras.

Prosecutors in the central city of Kayseri demanded a life term on charges of "premeditated murder" for Mevlut Saldogan, who was arrested in August last year along with seven men, including three other police suspects.

The prosecution said Saldogan kicked Korkmaz thrice in the face, head and chest and continued to kick and beat him even after he fell to the ground, lying semi-conscious and unable to defend himself.

Prosecutors are also seeking up to 16 years in jail for another police officer, Yalcin Akbulut, on charges of "causing intentional injury and death", while demanding the acquittal of two other policemen due to a "lack of evidence."

Four other defendants, all working at a bakery near the scene of the attack, face up to 12 years in prison for "causing serious injury", private news agency Dogan said.

In the fifth hearing in the trial on Wednesday, the defense lawyers claimed that Korkmaz, who suffered a brain hemorrhage and died after 38 days in a coma, lost his life after falling down the stairs.

The trial was adjourned until December 26.

Korkmaz was one of eight people to die in the three weeks of unrest that convulsed the country of 76 million.

The demonstrations last year began as a protest against plans to redevelop a park in Istanbul and snowballed into a campaign against the authoritarianism of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then prime minister.

The lawyer for Korkmaz's family Ayhan Erdogan welcomed the prosecutors' decision and said that the family would file a complaint against Erdogan and his then interior minister Muammer Guler for "having incited these acts".