Ajanta Kaza

Practice

Ajanta practices in all areas of crime and her practice consists exclusively of defence work. She has built up a practice in terrorism related work and has defended in prosecutions brought both under the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. Otherwise, her criminal practice encompasses serious public order offences, company fraud, mortgage fraud, money laundering, proceeds of crime and confiscation, revenue offences, drug trafficking and serious drug offences, serious offences of violence including s.18 wounding with intent and armed robbery, serious sexual offences including those involving children, serious theft related matters including aggravated burglary and robbery.

Notable Cases

> Amongst other terrorism related matters, Ajanta was successfully involved in R v Kalayci and others, a multi-handed terrorist case, in which the defendants were charged with membership, fundraising and conspiracy to facilitate the retention or control by or on behalf of another person of terrorist property. The defendants were alleged to be involved in the activities of the People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), a left wing Turkish terrorist group, adhering to a Marxist- Leninist ideology. This group was alleged to have been responsible for perpetrating numerous fatal acts of terrorism on the Turkish mainland. The case was stayed as an abuse of the process of the Court after legal argument relating to the existence of correspondence from the Home Office which amounted to a promise not to prosecute and which represented directly and by inference that activities carried out by the DHKC (in which all defendants admitted involvement) and on behalf of DHKP-C prisoners in Turkey was lawful and that the DHKC was not proscribed.

> R v Momodou and others - the "Yarlswood Detention Centre Arson Case" After a trial lasting over four months, an acquittal was secured for her client. The case involved arson and violent disorder resulting in approximately £97 million worth of damage to New Labour’s flagship immigration detention centre built to meet government targets to remove failed asylum seekers. Ajanta was instrumental in drafting a 52 page skeleton argument on abuse of process based on grounds of prejudicial publicity,; breach of duty to properly investigate; prosecution and police failure to preserve evidence; prosecution failure to disclose material expeditiously; legitimate expectation; flawed evidence gathering; flawed identification procedures; contamination of testimony by flawed identification procedures and breaches of Articles 6 and 14 of the European Convention. Publications "Promoting Conflict - the "emdinli Bombing" - September 2006 Ajanta travelled to Turkey to observe the trial of two of three men accused involvement in the bombing of a bookshop in the town of Semdinli in the province of Hakkari. The incident sent shock waves throughout Turkey and internationally because the two of the men accused were non-commissioned army officers, raising the spectre of ‘deep state' involvement in the attacks. The report expresses concern that no investigation was conducted of higher level official involvement and at the high degree of political involvement in the Semdinli incident by the government, state officials and senior military personnel. The events surrounding the incident -- including the capture of the accused by the public, the military profile of the accused, and the subsequent decision to dismiss the Public Prosecutor mostly because the indictment contained credible allegations against senior members of the military, including, General Büyükanıt who has since been appointed Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces- shed light on the multi-dimensional layers of the conflict which has blighted the Kurdish region of Turkey for the past two decades. The bookstore explosion and attacks which took place in the surrounding area in the six months preceding it exposed the many levels of state involvement in this conflict.

"The Lifting of State Emergency Rule: A Democratic Future for the Kurds?" - November 2002 - assessing the impact of legal and administrative changes on democratic and human rights issues that have dominated Turkey’s international profile and are principle considerations pertaining to Turkey’s accession to the EU. Ajanta has contributed to other publications on human rights and terrorism related subjects.

Memberships

Ajanta is a member of the Kurdish Human Rights Committee legal team; the Bar Human Rights Committee and the Criminal Bar association.

Human Rights Practice

Ajanta has developed a practice in human rights over several years. She has been involved in a multitude of cases before the European Court of Human Rights concerning many of the principle Articles of the Convention and its related Protocols, representing petitioners against the governments of Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. In particular, she is responsible for numerous sets of pleadings in some of the first cases to be submitted to the European Court of Human Rights against the Armenian government relating to freedom of expression in Armenia which are expected to establish legal precedent: for example Meltex Ltd v. Armenia; Meltex Ltd v Armenia (II) and Noyan Tapan Ltd v Armenia which concerns broadcast rights for television stations and abuse of Articles 6, 10, 14 and Article 1 of protocol 1. Equally she is responsible for pleadings in a multitude of cases concerning the wrongful arrest and detention of individuals following their attendance at mass public demonstrations against the inauguration of the President following the second Presidential elections held in March 2003: see for example Abrahamyan v Armenia; Gasparyan v Armenia; Mkhitaryan v Armenia; Karapetyan v Armenia; (A) Kirakosyan v Armenia; Amiryan v Armenia; Sapeyan v Armenia; Davtyan v Armenia; (L) Kirakosyan v Armenia. Virtually all these cases have been declared admissible by the European Court of Human Rights. Ajanta has been involved in the preparation of other notable cases before the European Court of Human Rights: see for example Yazici (and 35 others) v Turkey concerning the expropriation of land of Kurdish villagers to build an oil pipeline (Baku-Tblisi- Ceyhan); Unal (and 37 others) v Turkey concerning the wholesale destruction of villages inhabited by internally displaced individuals; Abdullah Ocalan v Turkey which concerns the abolition of the death penalty, extra-territoriality of Convention jurisdiction to overseas detention and fair trial issues; Issa and others v Turkey which establishes the extra-territorial reach of the Convention where member States exercise de facto military control over nonmember state territory, in this case Iraq.

Ajanta routinely carries out training, research, trial observations, human rights monitoring and fact-finding missions in many foreign jurisdictions; provides advice; and writes published reports and contributions to legal articles for certain NGOs and carries out human rights work in foreign jurisdictions such as Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia. Ajanta has conducted a number of human rights training seminars for lawyers on European Convention principles and jurisprudence over several years.