What happened in Güçlükonak?
No judicial progress has been made on the case of Güçlükonak where Gendarmerie forces killed 11 villagers in 1996.
The video released by Initiative Against Thought Crimes (Düşünce Suçuna Karşı Girişim) released the following video in 2009.
11 villagers were detained and then killed by gendarmerie forces in 1996, however no culprits were found and no prosecution has been launched despite a ruling by ECHR.
What happened in 18 years ago?
Following PKK’s bilateral ceasefire on January 15, 1995, military forces stormed the villages of Çevrimli and Yatağan in Şırnak province on January 12, 1996, detaining individuals Abdullah İlhan, Ahmet Kaya, Ali Nas, Neytullah İlhan, Halit Kaya and Ramazan Oruç for aiding and abetting the PKK.
3 days later at around 6am a gendarme from Taşkonak called the gendarmerie post in the neighboring village of Koçyurdu and asked for a minibus to be sent to transport the six detainees to Güçlükonak. Shortly afterwards the minibus driver, Beşir Nas, who lived in Koçyurdu, was summoned. Reportedly on the orders of the Koçyurdu gendarmerie commander, he picked up an escort of four village guards from Koçyurdu: Mehmet Öner, Lokman Özdemir, Abdulhalim Yılmaz and Hamid Yılmaz.
One account of the incident states that the initial six detainees had already been executed, and that the four village guards were killed when they arrived and expressed horror at the murders.If so, then Beşir Nas must have been forced by the gendarme sergeant and soldiers to drive the minibus with ten corpses back towards Koçyurdu.
Shortly after 10am the villagers at Koçyurdu say that they saw the helicopter again and heard prolonged machine-gun fire. They also claim they heard the explosions of two or three rockets.
The ten burned bodies seem to have been returned to the scene of the crime the following morning, 16 January, for the benefit of visiting journalists (the covered bodies, laid by the side of the road, are visible in press photographs of the scene). The correspondents were brought to the site by helicopter in the early afternoon.
The relatives of victims took the case to the European Court of Human Rights in July 1996. The court found Turkey guilty and ordered to pay complainants for damages.
The Public Prosecutor charged Münir Ceylan, Ercan Kanar and Şanar Yurdatapan with “insulting the armed forces” under Article 159 of the Turkish Penal Code. They were acquitted later on the Court of Cessation. Even though the same individuals submitted complaints on the same issue in the years of 2000, 2002 and 2009, no progress has been made. No trial has opened regarding the incident in Güçlükonak. (AS/BM)
* Click here to read the article in Turkish.
