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 The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...

. He served as the sub-prefect of

Boğazlıyan Boğazlıyan is a town in Yozgat Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. It is the seat of Boğazlıyan District.governor of Yozgat, and inspector of deportations in

Konya Konya is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium. In 19th-century accounts of the city in En ...

. He is known for organizing the deportation of 40,000 Armenians from

Boğazlıyan Boğazlıyan is a town in Yozgat Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. It is the seat of Boğazlıyan District.Yozgat region that resulted in the deaths of thousands of

Armenians Armenians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Armenian highlands of West Asia.Robert Hewsen, Hewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia" in ''The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiq ...

during the genocide, and overseeing

deportations Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people by a state from its sovereign territory. The actual definition changes depending on the place and context, and it also changes over time. A person who has been deported or is under sen ...

. Kemal Bey was the first person executed of the Istanbul trials.

Early life and education

Kemâl was born on March 1, 1884, in

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

to a family originating in

Larissa Larissa (; , , ) is the capital and largest city of the Thessaly region in Greece. It is the fifth-most populous city in Greece with a population of 148,562 in the city proper, according to the 2021 census. It is also the capital of the Larissa ...

(

Thessaly Thessaly ( ; ; ancient Aeolic Greek#Thessalian, Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic regions of Greece, geographic and modern administrative regions of Greece, administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient Thessaly, a ...

). He was educated in

Antalya Antalya is the fifth-most populous city in Turkey and the capital of Antalya Province. Recognized as the "capital of tourism" in Turkey and a pivotal part of the Turkish Riviera, Antalya sits on Anatolia's southwest coast, flanked by the Tau ...

and

İzmir İzmir is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara. It is on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast of Anatolia, and is the capital of İzmir Province. In 2024, the city of İzmir had ...

where he studied at the modern-day

Ankara University Ankara University () is a public university, public research university in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. It was the first higher education institution founded in Turkey after the History of the Republic of Turkey, formation of the Turkish republ ...

Career

In 1909, Bey completed his studies and became a

kaymakam Kaymakam, also known by #Names, many other romanizations, was a title used by various officials of the Ottoman Empire, including acting grand viziers, governors of provincial sanjaks, and administrators of district kazas. The title has been reta ...

(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. During the

, 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. Mehmed Kemal also engaged in 'large-scale plunder and embezzlement of the victims' property', according to

Uğur Ümit Üngör Uğur Ümit Üngör (born in Erzincan, 1980) is a Dutch–Turkish academic, historian, sociologist, and professor of Genocide studies, specializing as a scholar and researcher of Holocaust studies and studies on mass violence. He served as Prof ...

."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 He took, with his family, a large house and an apartment that were plundered from Armenian deportees. He was arrested for the first time in 1917 and sentenced to three years and four months of prison for 'misappropriation' (''su-i istimalât''). However, after filing an appeal, he was released because the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

needed civil servants.

Trial

First of the Istanbul trials

Mehmed Kemal was the first person to be indicted and then sentenced to death in the Istanbul trials. 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 The Young Turks (, also ''Genç Türkler'') formed as a constitutionalist broad opposition-movement in the late Ottoman Empire against the absolutist régime of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (). The most powerful organization of the movement, a ...

administrators and officers took the opportunity of his trial to testify against him and his actions. The trials indicted Mehmed Kemal alongside some of his accomplices in the Yozgat deportations and massacres, Mehmed Tevfik and Abdül Fayaz. The charges included:

"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 In law, a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, either oral or written, of what they know or claim to know. A witness might be compelled to provide testimony in court, before a grand jur ...

, including local Turkish officials and

, 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, but contradicted his written testimony where he had stated that the

government had ordered the destruction of the most incriminating evidence. 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. 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. 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. During his trial, Turkish deputy Shakir Bey from

Yozgat Yozgat is a city in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. It is the seat of Yozgat Province and Yozgat District.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. 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."

After Shakir Bey's testimony, Djemal Bey, the former governor of Yozgat, stated that there had never been intense

rebel A rebel is a participant in a rebellion. Rebel or rebels may also refer to: People * Rebel (given name) * Rebel (surname) * Patriot (American Revolution), during the American Revolution * American Southerners, as a form of self-identification; ...

activity by

in that region, which was the last argument used by the defense to save Mehmed Kemal. Finally, the verdict was reached with the discovery of a telegram from

Talaat Pasha Mehmed Talât (1 September 187415 March 1921), commonly known as Talaat Pasha or Talat Pasha, was an Ottoman Young Turk activist, revolutionary, politician, and convicted war criminal who served as the leader of the Ottoman Empire from 191 ...

, 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.

Verdict

The court noted that only 80 Armenians remained in

Yozgat Yozgat is a city in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. It is the seat of Yozgat Province and Yozgat District. On April 8, 1919, Mehmed Kemal was unanimously found guilty of premeditated mass murder in conjunction with robbery. 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. The

court A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and Administration of justice, administer justice in Civil law (common law), civil, Criminal law, criminal, an ...

concluded that :

"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.

Execution

Before the death sentence was carried out,

Sultan Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...

and

Caliph A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of ...

Mehmed VI Mehmed VI Vahideddin ( ''Meḥmed-i sâdis'' or ''Vaḥîdü'd-Dîn''; or /; 14 January 1861 – 16 May 1926), also known as ''Şahbaba'' () among the Osmanoğlu family, was the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire and the penultimate Ottoman Cal ...

had a

fatwa A fatwa (; ; ; ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified Islamic jurist ('' faqih'') in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a ''mufti'', ...

from the Sheikh al-Islam, Mustafa Sabri, delivered to Mehmed Kemal on April 9, 1919. The next day, April 10, 1919, Mehmed Kemal was publicly hanged in Bayazid Square in

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

, in front of a gathering of

Young Turks The Young Turks (, also ''Genç Türkler'') formed as a constitutionalist broad opposition-movement in the late Ottoman Empire against the absolutist régime of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (). The most powerful organization of the movement, ...

who demanded his release. His last words were, according to an alleged account of the French Maritime Intelligence Agency,

"Long live the
Muslims Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
and
Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
. Death to the
Armenians Armenians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Armenian highlands of West Asia.Robert Hewsen, Hewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia" in ''The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiq ...
, perpetual enemies of the empire."

Aftermath

On October 10, 1922, Kemal was declared a "national martyr" by the Grand National Assembly under

Kemalist Kemalism (, also archaically ''Kamâlizm'') or Atatürkism () is a political ideology based on the ideas of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Turkey, Republic of Turkey.Eric J. Zurcher, Turkey: A Modern History. Ne ...

control. 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. In 2023, the Turkish governor of

Boğazlıyan Boğazlıyan is a town in Yozgat Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. It is the seat of Boğazlıyan District.1884 births 1919 deaths Armenian genocide perpetrators Turks from the Ottoman Empire 20th-century civil servants from the Ottoman Empire Executed mass murderers Executions by the Ottoman Special Military Tribunal Kaymakams People executed by public hanging