The 11th hearing of the case for the 22 people executed and forcibly disappeared in Kızıltepe, Mardin between 1992-96 was held in the Ankara High Criminal Court No.5.

Depositions by Bedran Akdağ, who was on duty at the time, including detailed information on many extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances were read in the hearing.

Suspect Ahmet Boncuk and suspect counsels were present in the courtroom while suspect Mehmet Salih Kılıçarslan attended from the Mardin Type E Prison where he is in remand for another crime.

Lawyer Senem Doğanoğlu, the monitoring committee from the Truth Justice Memory Center and many people were present to follow the case.

Eyüp Bölük gave a deposition as a witness and claimed that because it has been many years, he doesn’t know if the suspects did or didn’t commit the crimes in question.

“PKK WAS BLAMED”

Witness Bedran Akdağ’s depositions were read separately in the hearing.

Akdağ said he gave information to JİTEM off the record between 1992 and 1994, and worked as a village guard in the JİTEM from 1994 onwards. Akdağ said he witnessed many massacres and claimed that the JİTEM “made it look like the PKK committed the murders they did”.

Akdağ said: “I even saw military personnel wear the PKK guerrillas’ clothes and commit murders.”

It also came to light that even though the bones of disappeared Nurettin Yalçınkaya, listed in the casefile as “deceased”, was found in a well in Kızıltepe in 2009 and his identity was confirmed, he was listed as alive in the census records.

A warrant is going to be issued for relevant institutions to rectify the conflict in records and for the Kızıltepe District Gendarmerie Command to investigate in the village Yalçınkaya was registered in.

After a previous inquiry to combine the cases for a similar case in the Adıyaman High Criminal Court was rejected, the court sent the casefiles to the Supreme Court with the demand to combine the cases. The court demanded the verdict to be postponed until the Supreme Court decides, but was rejected.

The next hearing will be on November 28.

SUSPECTS ON TRIAL

Retired Captain Hasan Atilla Uğur, Diyarbakır Provincial Gendarmerie Command of the time Captain Eşref Hatipoğlu, Gendarmerie Company Commander Ahmet Boncuk, Sergeant Major Ünal Alkan and village guards Abdurrahman Kurğa, Mehmet Emin Kurğa, Ramazan Çetin, Mehmet Salih Kılınçaslan and İsmet Kandemir are on trial for “forming or managing an armed organization” and “premeditated murder”.

The 10th hearing of the case was held on May 10 and the secret witness “Aydos” was heard.

“Aydos” said the Gendarmerie Commander of the time Hasan Atilla Uğur had executed 3 people in the entrance of the district and left the bodies by the public hospital.