Extrajudicial Killings and JİTEM

Abdülkadir Aygan, now living in Sweden, is a former PKK member who later worked for the illegal and clandestine JİTEM (Gendarmerie Intelligence Anti-Terrorism Unit).

In a statement on the nasname.com website, he revealed a list of people working for JİTEM from 1990 to 2000, when many people disappeared and /or were killed in gendarmerie detention in the southeast of Turkey.

Now he has given bianet three more names of people involved in JİTEM: Sergeant Major Mehmet Çakır, Sergeant Seçkin Pamukçu and worker Hasan Adak. Another informant, Murat Demir, has accused Adak of the murder of Vedat Aydın, the Diyarbakır province party chair of the People's Labour Party (HEP).

In his statement on the nasname.com website, Aygan called on the government and prosecutors to investigate those "focal points of evil and their members" rather than trying to get Sweden to extradite Aygan.

Hierarchical structure

According to the informant's statements, JITEM teams in the eastern and southeastern provinces of Batman, Elazığ, Mardin, Şırnak, Van, Hakkari and Erzurum were attached to the JİTEM group command in Diyarbakır, run by a major.

The other teams were headed by captains or lieutenants.

Aygan also claims that the hierarchic structure of JİTEM included team commands in Ankara, Istanbul, Adana, Mersin, Samsun and Antalya.

He names 22 officers, 15 non-commissioned officers and other military and civilian personnel of JİTEM, some of them in full and some with their first names.

He added that those forming and approving of JİTEM needed to be put on trial. (EÖ/AG)