Mehmed Kemal Bey was an Ottoman administrator and educator from the Young Turk party involved in the Armenian genocide. He served as the sub-prefect of Boğazlıyan, governor of Yozgat, and inspector of deportations in Konya. He is known for organizing the deportation of 40,000 Armenians from Boğazlıyan, establishing "killing sites" in the Yozgat region that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Armenians during the genocide, and overseeing deportations in Konya. Kemal Bey was the first person executed of the Istanbul trials.

The Istanbul trials of 1919–1920 were courts-martial of the Ottoman Empire that occurred soon after the Armistice of Mudros, in the aftermath of World War I.