Hafız Mehmed Bey

Hafız Mehmet (1874 – 13 July 1926) was a Turkish politician and the acting Minister of Justice for the Republic of Turkey. While serving as a deputy in Trabzon, he was a witness to the Armenian genocide. His testimony of the event is considered by genocide scholar Vahakn Dadrian as one of the "rarest corroborations of the fact of the complicity of governmental officials in the organization of the mass murder of Armenians". He was sentenced to death after the İzmir trials of 1926, charged with attempting to assassinate Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Early life Hafız Mehmet was born in the Ottoman Empire in the village of Sürmene located near Trabzon in 1874. He was the son of Hacı Yakubzâde Ahmed Ağa. He received his early education in local schools near Trabzon. He served as a lawyer throughout the Ottoman Empire. Since Trabzon was a coastal city of the Black Sea, the method employed to kill was mainly mass drowning. Hafız Mehmet witnessed such drownings of Armenians off the coast of Ordu, near Trabzon, and provided testimony of his eyewitness accounts during a 21 December 1918 parliamentary session of the Chamber of Deputies:

Hafız Mehmet stated that he and other deputies knew beforehand that the Young Turk government had an underlying aim to exterminate the Armenian population. He also said that those tasked to carry out the responsibility were members of the Special Organization, a special task force under the auspices of the imperial Ottoman government,

Hafız Mehmet's testimony is considered by genocide scholar Vahakn Dadrian as a representation of the "rarest corroborations of the fact of the complicity of governmental officials in the organization of the mass murder of the Armenians." The Italian consul of Trabzon in 1915, Giacomo Gorrini also wrote: "I saw thousands of innocent women and children placed on boats which were capsized in the Black Sea".

Later life and death Hafız Mehmet was sentenced to death after the İzmir trials of 1926. The trials condemned thirty-six individuals for attempting to assassinate Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.