Officers deny accusations in the investigation on torture of child

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The police officers against whom an investigation has been started upon a complaint for torturing a 14-year-old child inside an armored vehicle in Lice, Diyarbakır on March 21 denied the accusations in their statements.

Three of the police officers taken into custody in the scope of the investigation were arrested while two officers were released yesterday (March 27). After objections, an arrest warrant was issued and the two released police officers were also arrested today.

The 14-year-old child had filed a complaint and said in his statement that on March 21, he was made to get onto an armored vehicle and was subjected to torture, forced to curse, and threatened to be killed if he does not memorize the National Anthem, the anthem for the soldiers (Mehmetçik Marşı) and Address to Youth, and then thrown away near the river bed, his hands and his feet tied up.

A legal investigation was started about the police officers and three of the five officers taken into custody were arrested, and charged with willful injury while two officers were released.

The Governorship of Diyarbakır announced that the officers were suspended from duty and that an administrative investigation was also started.

Nahit Eren, the chairperson of the Diyarbakır Bar Association announced that both the Diyarbakır Chief Prosecutor's Office and the lawyers of the complainant objected to the decision for releasing two of the police officers given by the Lice Penal Court of Peace yesterday (March 27).  

Eren announced that an arrest warrant was issued for the two after these objections. 

Mezopotamya Agency reported that the two police officers were arrested today. 

The police officers are being charged with "willful injury," however, lawyer Eren maintains that the crime is in the scope of "torture." 

"Decision was taken in the district security meeting"

A.O. among the two officers who were released yesterday but arrested today, who is a chief police officer, denied the accusations in his statement before the court, Mezopotamya Agency (MA) reported.

A.O. denied the child's claim that he had hit the child with the riffle butt and argued that this was impossible given the small space inside the vehicle.

"The injured insisted that we let him go after we made him get into the car. We had taken decisions to take the children away from the site because the children are placed on the frontline in social events, and to hand them over to their families or to take them away from the scene without taking any administrative actions in our district security meeting. The Lice District Governor chaired this meeting and the Revenue Officer, the head of the registry office, the district gendarme commander, and the managers of other public agencies were present when this decision was taken.

"In this event, we took the injured to our vehicle from the scene due to the Newroz events. We left him alone since he insisted and since he told us he could go to his family himself without taking any action. This may be our only mistake.

"Newroz fire investigation should be carried out"

Chief officer A.O. said that they kept the child because he was throwing wood into the Newroz fire, and he denied the accusations of torture.

"We have not taken the injured when passing by. We identified that he was throwing firewood to the fire wearing a winter coat and with his face covered with a cloth. I request that these issues are investigated in detail." A. O. stated.

"I am chief of police, everybody knows me"

The chief officer also responded to the question about the 14-year-old having recognized him from the photographs.

"It is only normal that the injured has picked me from the photographs because I am the chief of police here and everybody knows me," he stated.

A.O.'s lawyer also argued that everybody knows his client in the district and his photograph can even be found through an internet search, and said, "It is clear that the injured has been instructed by some to identify my client."

"We saw he was a child when we opened his face"

The other police officer who was released yesterday but arrested today and the driver of the vehicle H.Ç. also denied any torture and said that they have taken the child from the Newroz demonstrations. "When the families did not call their children, we thought that they would call them back home if we took one of them," H.Ç. said.

G.B., who is one of the police officers that was arrested yesterday said, "When we came to the Bahtiyar Aydın Avenue, we saw that a group had put up a fire. Then stones started to be thrown at the anti-riot water cannon vehicle and at the vehicle we were in. We stopped one person among those who were running away. We took this person into our vehicle in order to protect both ourselves and him from the stones thrown. We understood that the person was a child when we opened the cloth on his face inside the vehicle."

"Gradual use of force"

Another police officer arrested yesterday, İ.A. said that they caught the child by the wall of a garden while he was running away and that they treated the child who resisted them with gradual use of force. "When the person continued to resist us inside the vehicle we placed plastic handcuffs on his arms."

İ.A. also argued that the wounds on the child's body were "due to the stones thrown." İ.A. also claimed that neither the hands nor the feet of the child were tied up when they left him and that he was not injured. He argued that he could be injured while people were throwing stones and rejected that they hit the child with a riffle buff. E.Ö., the other police officer who has been arrested also argued that stones may have hit the child while they were taking him into the car. (AS/PE)