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Mehmed Kemal Bey

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Mehmed Kemal Bey (March 1, 1884 – April 10, 1919) was an Ottoman administrator and educator from the Young Turk party involved in the Armenian genocide. He served as the sub-prefect of Boğazlıyan, governor of Yozgat, and inspector of deportations in Konya.[1] He is known for organizing the deportation of 40,000 Armenians from Boğazlıyan,[2] establishing "killing sites" in the Yozgat region that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Armenians during the genocide,[3] and overseeing deportations in Konya.[1][4] Kemal Bey was the first person executed of the Istanbul trials.

Mehmed Kemal Bey
Born(1884-03-01)March 1, 1884
Beirut, Lebanon
DiedApril 10, 1919(1919-04-10) (aged 35)
Beyazıt Square, Allied-occupied Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Cause of deathExecution by hanging
Criminal statusExecuted
Conviction(s)Premeditated mass murder
Robbery
TrialOttoman Special Military Tribunal
Criminal penaltyDeath

Early life and education

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Kemâl was born on March 1, 1884, in Beirut to a family originating in Larissa (Thessaly).[citation needed] He was educated in Antalya and İzmir where he studied at the modern-day Ankara University.[citation needed]

Career

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In 1909, Bey completed his studies and became a kaymakam (sub-prefect of a district). In 1915, he became the governor of the Boğazlıyan province. Afterward, he served as the governor of Yozgat (vali) and later as the inspector of deportations in Konya.[1]

During the Armenian genocide, Mehmed Kemal personally organized the killing site in Boğazlıyan and supervised the extermination process. Later, when he was transferred to Konya, he carried out deportation orders with zeal, even exterminating entire villages without deporting them.[4]

Mehmed Kemal also engaged in 'large-scale plunder and embezzlement of the victims' property', according to Uğur Ümit Üngör.[5] He took, with his family, a large house and an apartment that were plundered from Armenian deportees.[5][6] He was arrested for the first time in 1917 and sentenced to three years and four months of prison for 'misappropriation' (su-i istimalât).[5] However, after filing an appeal, he was released because the Ottoman Empire needed civil servants.[5]

Trial

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Main article: Istanbul trials of 1919–1920

First of the Istanbul trials

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Mehmed Kemal was the first person to be indicted and then sentenced to death in the Istanbul trials.[7][8] Hasan Mazhar had wished to start with him, as he had committed his acts in a region he knew well, and where he had been able to gather a substantial amount of evidence on the genocidal mechanisms at work. Other Young Turk administrators and officers took the opportunity of his trial to testify against him and his actions.[9]

The trials indicted Mehmed Kemal alongside some of his accomplices in the Yozgat deportations and massacres, Mehmed Tevfik and Abdül Fayaz.[10][11] The charges included:[10]

"The mass murder of Yozgat's Armenian deportees at Keller and elsewhere, the pillage and plunder of the victim's goods, and the abduction and rape of many members of the convoys."

His defense in court was complicated; he was accused by around thirty witnesses, including local Turkish officials and Armenians, of exterminating the Armenian population in his region. He claimed to be innocent and stated that he had merely followed the orders given to him,[12] but contradicted his written testimony where he had stated that the Young Turk government had ordered the destruction of the most incriminating evidence.[13]

During another session, Mehmed Kemal was forced to admit that some extermination orders were signed by his own hand, although he believed they had been destroyed.[13] His situation worsened further after the discovery of one of his telegrams sent to a lieutenant of the Special Organization, called Hulusi, in which he advocated for the "deportation, meaning annihilation" of the Armenian population.[13] One of the Turkish witnesses, a local official, accused him on February 22 of having massacred over 1,500 Armenians in just a few days.[14]

During his trial, Turkish deputy Shakir Bey from Yozgat intervened[15] and testified that Mehmed Kemal personally participated in the massacres and acted "with the manners of butchers."[16] He revealed the intentions of the Ottoman government by recalling that Mehmed Kemal boasted about being promoted to the position of governor of Yozgat as a reward for his Armenian massacres.[14] He reported the following statements allegedly made by Mehmed Kemal in his presence:

"I massacred the Armenians in Boğazlıyan, and I became an interim canton governor. I am killing them here as well. I will be appointed as the governor of a provincial district, or perhaps even a province."[14][17]

After Shakir Bey's testimony, Djemal Bey, the former governor of Yozgat, stated that there had never been intense rebel activity by Armenians in that region, which was the last argument used by the defense to save Mehmed Kemal.[13][18] Finally, the verdict was reached with the discovery of a telegram from Talaat Pasha, sent on August 9, 1915, stating that Mehmed Kemal had participated in the massacres and had already exterminated over 3,160 Armenians by that date.[14]

Verdict

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The court noted that only 80 Armenians remained in Yozgat out of an initial population of over 8,000.[13][17][19] On April 8, 1919, Mehmed Kemal was unanimously found guilty of premeditated mass murder in conjunction with robbery.[13][20][18][21] He was sentenced to death in accordance with Articles 45 and 170 of the Ottoman Penal Code and Article 171 of the Ottoman Military Penal Code. Premeditation was considered an aggravating factor.[13][17][22]

The court concluded that[23][22] :

"There can be no doubt or hesitation (şüphe ve tereddiit birak-madigindan) that the deportations were a cloak for massacres."

Bey's two accomplices fared better. Mehmed Tevfik was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labour. He was pardoned in 1923. Abdul Fayaz escaped, joined the Kemalists. He later became a Turkish deputy.[22]

Execution

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Before the death sentence was carried out, Sultan and Caliph Mehmed VI had a fatwa from the Sheikh al-Islam, Mustafa Sabri, delivered to Mehmed Kemal on April 9, 1919.[17]

The next day, April 10, 1919, Mehmed Kemal was publicly hanged in Bayazid Square in Istanbul, in front of a gathering of Young Turks who demanded his release.[13] His last words were, according to an alleged account of the French Maritime Intelligence Agency,

"Long live the Muslims and Turkey. Death to the Armenians, perpetual enemies of the empire."[24]

Aftermath

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On October 10, 1922, Kemal was declared a "national martyr" by the Grand National Assembly under Kemalist control.[25] In 1926, the Turkish state offered his family two properties confiscated during the seizure of Armenian assets. In 1973, his tomb was renovated. His tomb has since been declared a national memorial.[26]

In 2023, the Turkish governor of Boğazlıyan laid a wreath of flowers in his honor during a ceremony.[27][28]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Hovannisian, Richard G., ed. (1992). The Armenian genocide: history, politics, ethics. Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-55703-4. OCLC 59104373.
  2. ^ Duclert, Vincent; Kévorkian, Raymond Haroutiun (16 October 2023). Comprendre le génocide des Arméniens: 1915 à nos jours. Tallandier. ISBN 979-10-210-0675-1. OCLC 906015983.
  3. ^ De Waal, Thomas (2015). Great catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the shadow of genocide. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-935070-4. OCLC 897378977.
  4. ^ a b Nichanian, Mikaël (25 March 2015), "13. Les procès des responsables du génocide arménien à Constantinople (1919-1920)", Le génocide des Arméniens, Armand Colin, pp. 166–177, ISBN 978-2-200-29442-7, archived from the original on 5 May 2023, retrieved 2 May 2023
  5. ^ a b c d "The Dispossession of Ottoman Armenians during the World War I Genocide," Dr. Uğur Ümit Üngör, Utrecht University, https://www.cgeh.nl/sites/default/files/Ungor-ESH_Utrecht-1.pdf Archived 7 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ BCA, 30.18.1.1/23.7.12, file 137-75, number 4710, decree dated 2 February 1927 (quoted in The Dispossession of Ottoman Armenians during the World War I Genocide, Uğur Ümit Üngör)
  7. ^ Latino, Agostina (2018), Lattanzi, Flavia; Pistoia, Emanuela (eds.), "The Armenian Massacres and the Price of Memory: Impossible to Forget, Forbidden to Remember", The Armenian Massacres of 1915–1916 a Hundred Years Later, Studies in the History of Law and Justice, vol. 15, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 195–236, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-78169-3_9, ISBN 978-3-319-78168-6, archived from the original on 29 January 2024, retrieved 2 May 2023
  8. ^ Erickson, Edward J. (2021). The Turkish War of Independence: a military history, 1919-1923. Santa Barbara, California: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4408-7842-8. OCLC 1238131424.
  9. ^ "Turks Hang Kemal Bey for Armenian Massacres". The New York Times. 14 April 1919. Archived from the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
  10. ^ a b Kevin Heller; Gerald Simpson, eds. (2013). The Hidden Histories of War Crimes Trials. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-165320-9. OCLC 863822836. The Yozgat Officials trial ran from 5 February to 7 April 1919, in eighteen sittings. Mehmed Kemal (Kemal Bey), Mehmed Tevfik and Abdul Fayaz—all officials from Yozgat—were indicted. They were accused of the 'mass murder of Yozgat's Armenian deportees at Keller and elsewhere, the pillage and plunder of the victim's goods, and the abduction and rape of many members of the convoys'
  11. ^ De Zayas, Alfred M. (2010). The genocide against the Armenians, 1915-1923 and the relevance of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Haigazian University. ISBN 978-9953-475-15-8. OCLC 1247966069.
  12. ^ "The Execution of Mehmet Kemal Bey, kaymakam of Boğazlıyan". Aniarc. ANI Armenian Research Center. 14 March 2015. Archived from the original on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h Richard G. Hovannisian, ed. (1992). The Armenian genocide: history, politics, ethics. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-55703-4. OCLC 59104373.
  14. ^ a b c d Akçam, Taner (2012). The Young Turks' crime against humanity: the Armenian genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15333-9. OCLC 761850761.
  15. ^ Ralph J. Henham; Paul Behrens, eds. (2016). The criminal law of genocide: international, comparative and contextual aspects. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-61512-7. OCLC 948604971.
  16. ^ Dadrian, Vahakn N. (1991). "The Documentation of the World War I Armenian Massacres in the Proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 23 (4): 549–576. doi:10.1017/S0020743800023412. ISSN 0020-7438.
  17. ^ a b c d Bilgi, Nejdet (1999). Ermeni tehciri ve Boğazlıyan kaymakamı Mehmed Kemal Bey'in yargılanması (1. baskı ed.). Ankara: KÖK Sosyal ve Stratejik Araştırmalar Vakfı. ISBN 975-7430-23-4. OCLC 47840157.
  18. ^ a b Balint, Jennifer (31 October 2013). "The Ottoman State Special Military Tribunal for the Genocide of the Armenians: 'Doing Government Business'". In Kevin Heller; Gerry Simpson (eds.). The Hidden Histories of War Crimes Trials. Oxford Academic. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199671144.003.0004.
  19. ^ Höss, Annette (1992), "The Trial of Perpetrators by the Turkish Military Tribunals: The Case of Yozgat", The Armenian Genocide, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 208–221, doi:10.1007/978-1-349-21955-1_9 (inactive 1 November 2024), ISBN 978-1-349-21957-5{{citation}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)
  20. ^ Akın, Yiğit (2014). "War, Women, and the State: The Politics of Sacrifice in the Ottoman Empire During the First World War". Journal of Women's History. 26 (3): 12–35. doi:10.1353/jowh.2014.0040. ISSN 1527-2036. S2CID 143886448.
  21. ^ Balint, Jennifer (31 October 2011). Genocide, State Crime and the Law. Routledge-Cavendish. doi:10.4324/9780203806272. ISBN 978-1-136-65415-2.
  22. ^ a b c Kevin Heller; Gerald Simpson, eds. (2013). The Hidden Histories of War Crimes Trials. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-165320-9. OCLC 863822836.
  23. ^ Dadrian, Vahakn N. (1991). "The Documentation of the World War I Armenian Massacres in the Proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 23 (4): 549–576. doi:10.1017/S0020743800023412. ISSN 0020-7438.
  24. ^ de Courrèges d'Agnos, Constance (3 January 2019). "Du Dépôt de la Marine au Service historique de la Défense: les fonds de bibliothèque d'histoire militaire maritime". Revue Historique des Armées. 296 (3): 19–25. doi:10.3917/rha.296.0019. ISSN 0035-3299. S2CID 252151470.
  25. ^ Balint, Jennifer; Haslem, Neal; Haydon, Kirsten (25 March 2019). Chapter 14 The Work of Peace: World War One, Justice and Translation Through Art. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG. pp. 337–354. doi:10.5771/9783845299167-337. ISBN 978-3-8487-5754-1.
  26. ^ "Kaymakam Mehmed Kemal kimdir? Ne zaman ve neden idam edildi? İşte biyografisi". Karar. 14 April 2021. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021.
  27. ^ MÜDÜRLÜĞÜ, YOZGAT-BOĞAZLIYAN İLÇE MİLLÎ EĞİTİM. "Milli Şehit Kaymakam Mehmed Kemal Bey Anma Töreni". bogazliyan.meb.gov.tr (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 29 January 2024. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
  28. ^ Hizmetleri, Sinekkuşu İnternet (4 October 2023). "Milli Şehit Boğazlıyan Kaymakamı Kemal Bey dualarla anıldı". Mia Haber (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 29 January 2024. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
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