Vice news correspondent Jacop Philip John Gingell Hanrahan, cameraman Philipi John Pendlebury, their translator Mohamed Ismael Rasool and their driver Abdurrahman Direkci were detained on 28 August 2015 when they came to Diyarbakır to shoot a documentary about the life under curfew in Cizre, Silopi, Nusaybin and Sur.
They face up to 67 years of imprisonment for “knowingly and willingly aiding an armed terrorist organization as a non-member” and “propagandising for a terrorist organisation” at the 8th High Criminal Court of Diyarbakır. In the trial held on February 27, 2017, the court lifted Rasools’s and Direkci’s bans on leaving the country and adjourned the hearing to July 2017.
At the hearing of the case held on December 24, 2020, it was seen that the letter of instruction sent to the Ministry of Justice, requesting that the testimonies of the defendants living in England be taken through rogatory, had not yet been replied. The court has ruled that the reply shall be awaited. The next hearing will be held on May 20, 2021 (December 24).