Istanbul trials of 1919–1920

The government of Tevfik Pasha decided, without waiting for an international court, to prosecute crimes of Ottoman officials, committed primarily against the Armenian population, in national courts. On November 23, 1918, Sultan Mehmed VI created a government commission of inquiry, and Hasan Mazhar Bey was appointed chairman. The formation of a military tribunal investigating the crimes of the Young Turks was a continuation of the work of the Mazhar commission, and on December 16, 1918, the Sultan officially established such tribunals. Three military tribunals and ten provincial courts were created. The tribunals came to be known as "Nemrud's court", after Mustafa "Nemrud" Pasha Yamulki.


The leadership of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) and selected former officials were charged with several charges including subversion of the constitution, wartime profiteering, and the massacres of both Armenians and Greeks.^[4] The court reached a verdict which sentenced the organizers of the massacres – Talat, Enver, and Cemal – and others to death.^[1][2] All those sentenced to death were sent a fatwa from the Sheikh al-Islam in the name of Mehmed VI before their execution, as the law stipulated that a Muslim couldn't be executed without a fatwa from the Sultan-Caliph.^[5]


These trials and fatwas also served as means for Mehmed VI to express his disapproval of the accused and legitimize his position, both in relation to his domestic situation with the Muslims in his empire, in the face of the Western powers that emerged victorious in World War I, and to anti–absolutist politicians.^[5]


Since there were no international laws in place under which they could be tried, the men who orchestrated the massacres escaped prosecution and traveled relatively freely throughout Germany, Italy, and Central Asia.^[6] This led to Dashnak Party's launch of Operation Nemesis, a covert operation conducted by Armenians during which Ottoman political and military figures who fled prosecution were assassinated for their role in the Armenian genocide.^[7]


The Turkish courts-martial were forced to shut down during the resurgence of the Turkish National Movement under Mustafa Kemal. Those who remained serving their sentences were ultimately pardoned under the newly established Kemalist government on 31 March 1923.^[8]

Purging of evidence[edit]

According to a leaked diplomatic cable from 2004, ambassador Muharrem Nuri Birgi was effectively in charge of destroying evidence during the 1980s. During the process of eliminating the evidence, ambassador Birgi stated in reference to the Armenians: "We really slaughtered them."^[36] Others, such as Tony Greenwood, the Director of the American Research Institute in Turkey, confirmed that a select group of retired military personnel were "going through" the archives. However, it was noted by a certain Turkish scholar that the examination was merely an effort to purge documents found in the archives.