Search in “Death Wells” Has Begun

Relatives of missing persons in the southeast of Turkey have long pressed for a search of certain areas said to have been used to hide bodies. One such known site was the wells of the Turkish Pipeline Corporation BOTAŞ in Silopi, a district of the southeastern province of Şırnak.

Yesterday (9 March) morning at 8 am, excavations started at the wells. Silopi’s Chief Prosecutor Atilla Öztürk, Şırnak Bar Association president Nurisevan Elçi and other lawyers went to the area of the wells, which is within a military zone. Two digging machines and other equipment were also taken there by some workers.

Because the site is on military grounds, reporters were not allowed to accompany the delegation. Dust clouds coming from Syria further prevented journalists from taking photographs from a distance.

Bones found

Both the Radikal and the Today’s Zaman newspaper are reporting today that bones and remains of clothes were found in the wells.

Elçi told the press that two pieces of bone and a stained piece of flannel had been found, but that it was not clear whether the bones were human remains. They are to be examined by the forensic medical team.

Other sites need to be investigated

Many people believe that a clandestine gendarmerie organisation, JITEM, was responsible for disappearances of political dissidents in the 1990s. The bodies of those killed are said to have been treated with acid and then buried. Apart from the site investigated yesterday, a few other sites have been named repeatedly.

Former PKK militant and then JTEM hitman Abdülkadir Aygan and Tuncay Güney, a controversial figure considered either a witness or a suspect in the ongoing Ergenekon investigation and living in Canada, have both spoken about extrajudicial killings.

In December, the Şırnak Bar Association had collected the appeals by relatives and applied to the Silopi prosecution for an investigation into possible burial sites.

The Bar Association has also said that some bodies are to be found in a graveyard for the poor in the district and has demanded an investigation there. Selahattin Demirtaş, MP for the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) has also indicated that excavations in that graveyard would find hundreds of bodies.

Links to Ergenekon?

Demirtaş has previously called for an investigation of Levent Ersöz, former JITEM commander in Şırnak in order to find out the truth about the extrajudicial killings. Ersöz has been arrested in the Ergenekon investigation.

Indeed, the Bar Association is demanding that the file on the missing bodies be merged with the Ergenekon investigation. It also wants DNA samples from the remains and the prosecution of those responsible for the deaths.

Military pressure?

Yesterday’s excavations went on until 5 pm. The prosecution had previously announced that the excavation would take place on 5 March, but had then postponed it to avoid “security issues or provocation”.

The Şırnak Bar Association has argued that there was no case for such worries, but that it was more urgent to prevent the loss of evidence.

Rojhat Dilsiz, a lawyer of the bar association, told bianet that lawyers had seen a military captain visit the prosecutor at the law court on 4 March.  (TK/AG)