Military Implicated in Killing of Grandfather
Bones discovered in Lice last year, almost 11 years after Bahri Budak and his grandson Metin were reported as missing, have been identified by DNA analysis as belonging to the two villagers.
Human Rights Association (IHD) Deputy Chairman Reyhan Yalcindag said the identification of the bones together with the discovery of spent standard military issue MKE cartridges just beside the remains, revealed that the Bolu Commando Brigade and other relevant security forces conducting an operation in the area at that time could have been responsible for the killing.
Bahri Budak and his grandson disappeared in May 1994.
The IHD is continuing its investigation into the Budak killing and regards the incident as "a crime against humanity", Yalcindag said. "In human right literature," he explained, "even being a relative to someone who has been made to disappear by force is regarded as torture and inhuman treatment spreading out over 24 hours."
IHD has issued an appeal to the Turkish Grand National Assembly and all relevant authorities to "do their duty" to solve the case.
Missing for 11 years
IHD Diyarbakir Branch Chairman Selahattin Demirtas had previously given a background of the Budak disappearance case to Bianet.
According to Demirtas, in 1994 security forces evacuated the Yalimli village of Lice by force. On 28 May 1994, following the evacuation of all residents, Bahri Budak and his 14 year old grandson Metin returned to the village to look after their planted field there. They were never heard of again since that visit.
Initiatives were made by relatives both at local and national level with petitions filed to the State of Emergency Governors' Office, the General Directorate of Village Services, the Grand National Assembly, the Lice Republic Prosecutor's Office, Interior Ministry, Diyarbakir Governor's Office and even the Prime Ministry. Yet non of them received a positive response.
When internal judicial means were exhausted for the family, the case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights on 13 December 2001, two years before villagers from Yalimli were slowly allowed to return to their settlement during the summer season to care for their plantations.
In 2005, animal husbandry also started in the village which, on May 1, led to the discovery by Abdulbaki Budak who was shepherding his sheep around the village, of some bones and remains of clothing in an old stream bank.
The Budak family confirmed the clothing and remains of some other possessions belonged to its two missing members leading to the IHD Diyarbakir Branch applying to the Lice Prosecutor's Office for an examination of the scene to collect evidence.
Bolu Commando Brigade
Witnesses related to the disappearance of the Budak's only started to appear at around the beginning of this year.
Bahri Budak's son Kadir's own account implies that the disappearance and killing of the two could be linked to the Bolu Commando Brigade which at the time of the evacuation and disappearance was operating in the area.
Budak's own private account of a meeting he had in 1994 with then commander of the brigade, now retired Major General Yavuz Erturk, is as follows:
"He wore no rank on his military uniform. He and his clothes were dirty all over, he wore a hat. Together with the armed soldiers protecting him he came to my side. He asked me 'what's up?' I then showed him my papers of permission and said 'I am searching for the bodies of my son and my father'. He said to me 'if your son and father were armed, I would have killed them. If they were not armed, I would not have seen them. Get out of here immediately or I will spray all of you with bullets.' Upon this, we were scared and returned back to Lice." (TK/KO/II/YE)