You Will Anyway: Charges dropped for most Turkish bodyguards who beat up people in DC

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Charges dropped for most Turkish bodyguards who beat up people in DC

Charges have been dropped against 11 members of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's security detail that were accused of beating protesters in Washington, D.C.

Federal prosecutors made the decision to drop the charges against 11 of out the 15 security members in connection with the incident.

[...]

The scuffle took place last May after roughly two dozen protesters gathered outside of the Turkish Embassy to protest Erdogan's policies during his visit to Washington.

Nine people were taken to local hospitals following the incident. The Turkish Embassy said that Erdogan's bodyguards were acting in "self-defense” during the incident and accused the protesters of being affiliated with the terrorist group PKK.

The Hill

A nice joke since the bodyguards left Erdoğan to go into the street to attack protesters.

Prosecutors in November requested a judge to drop the charges against four members of Erdogan's security team, and the charges against seven others were dropped in February before now-outgoing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson flew to Turkey to meet with Erdogan.

U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal that the prosecutors were not pressured to drop the charges saying that investigators had misidentified some suspects and did not have enough evidence against others.

Possibly true.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.