Mevlüt Demirkaya and Mehtap Demirkaya, father and sister of Berjin Demirkaya who was killed by being burned alive in the “basement of atrocity” in Cizre, Şırnak respectively, were arrested yesterday in a raid in their home. The father and daughter taken to Tekman District Gendarmerie Outpost were sent to the Prosecutor’s Office with charges of “terrorist organisation propaganda” after their testimony there. The father and daughter were sent to court with a demand for arrest, and later released awaiting trial under probation after they testified in the court. According to the verdict, the father and daughter will go to the outpost every week to sign in, travelling 30 kilometers from the village Geçit.

The soldiers asked Mehtap Demirkaya and Mevlüt Demirkaya under custody why they carried Berjin Demirkaya’s coffin, and said the following to Mehtap Demirkaya: “You weren’t crying in the hearse, you were even proud. You were there in the cemetery, saying ‘Berjins never die’. With this attitude you are making propaganda for the organisation.”

SOLDIERS: WE KNEW BEFOREHAND

During the questioning, an intriguing dialogue was heard from the soldiers. Mehtap Demirkaya was asked when she learned of her sister’s death and replied “On the day of February 25, as a result of the DNA test,” to which the soldiers said they already knew her ID beforehand. That the soldiers knew who the bodies belonged to, when the bodies could not be identified because they were completely burnt and in pieces and thus required DNA testing for identification, confirms the rumors that the civillians were captured alive and later burned to death.

TİHV (Human Rights Foundation of Turkey) prepared a preliminary report on the subject and pointed out that bones from the same body turned up in two separate locations raised suspicion on the circumstances of the event. All these confirm the testimonies of some of the witnesses who got out of the basements alive.