Tanrıkulu: "People Tortured 20 Metres away from Prosecution"

The number of skulls found in the mass grave that emerged right next to the former head office of the clandestine Gendarmerie Intelligence Anti-Terrorism Unit (JİTEM) in Diyarbakır increased to eleven. The excavation in the Saraykapı district where also the Diyarbakır Closed Prison and the Courthouse are being located has been going on since 11 January. The building next to the mass grave was used by JİTEM between 1993 and 1999.

Republican People's Party (CHP) Istanbul Deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu made an announcement after an investigation of the excavation area. "In the past, we prided ourselves on our underground wealth. Now, unsolved murders have become part of the undersoil", Tanrıkulu deplored.

He emphasized that the area should become subject of a broad investigation. Tanrıkulu said that the investigation carried out by the prosecutor's office was still being continued and that a decision of confidentiality was given. The deputy stressed that this kind of investigation should be carried out publicly.

"Considering this sort of investigations, mechanisms that protect the perpetrators such as the period of limitation should be removed from the criminal law in order to find the real perpetrators. The main perpetrators of the 1990s are waiting for the years 2010-15. In other words, they wait for the twenty-year statute of limitation to expire", Tanrıkulu explained.

"No efforts have been taken in parliament to remove the period of limitation related to this sort of crime from the criminal law", he criticized.

Tanrıkulu pointed to the fact that the prosecutors did not control the people taken into police custody in the past and that this area had also been used by the gendarmerie and the judiciary.

He argued that at the time the voices of the tortured people were within hearing range. Tanrıkulu defined the distance between the Diyarbakır Public Prosecution and the gendarmerie command with 20 metres. Nevertheless, torture was being done, he underlined.

"We can talk about hundreds of cases of missing persons. The people are searching for a grave to pray. What is inside these buildings? Where they buried? Were they not buried? We do not know. The legislative must establish a permanent commission outside the judiciary before the statute of limitation will be reached. A legal ground has to be prepared to solve these incidents. The perpetrators should show the places so these incidents come to light". (AS/VK)