Seriously ill prisoner Mehmet Sait Yıldırım suffers heart attack
Seriously ill prisoner Mehmet Sait Yıldırım has been eligible for release for over a year now. Despite this, his poor health and the efforts of his lawyer, Yıldırım remains behind bars. Then yesterday, following a particularly tense meeting with the prison’s Administrative and Monitoring Board, Yıldırım suffered a heart attack.
The 73-year-old Kurdish prisoner has served over 33 years in prison after being convicted of membership in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). He has been eligible for conditional release since Feb 27, 2025, but the board has postponed his release four times, with the most recent being yesterday for another three months.
Release of seriously ill prisoner Mehmet Sait Yıldırım postponed for third time
The board has consistently argued that Yıldırım has not demonstrated sufficient “remorse” over his actions and lacks “good behavior.”
Upon the heart attack, Yıldırım was first taken to a hospital in Buca, but, because there was no prisoner ward there, transferred to İzmir City Hospital, where had an angiography and two stents placed in his heart.
According to Yıldırım’s lawyer Ali İhsan Güven, Yıldırım is currently in good health and expected to be discharged today. One of the main arteries leading to his heart was blocked, meaning Yıldırım survived a potentially life threatening emergency.
In July Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party spokesperson and Şırnak MP Ayşegül Doğan raised the issue to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) Human Rights Investigation Commission. She requested an examination by authorities on Yıldırım's health condition and the enforcement of his sentence in relation to his rights to life and health.
MP seeks release of seriously ill Kurdish prisoner Mehmet Sait Yıldırım after two delays
According to Doğan’s application, Yıldırım suffers from not just heart disease, but also hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, arteriosclerosis, a cervical disc hernia, lung problems and even difficulty speaking — all of which impair his ability to carry out daily activities and cannot be regularly treated in prison.
According to Güven, Yıldırım said the following during the board meeting: “The DGM had given me the death penalty. It was converted from execution to life imprisonment. You, as a board, want to execute the death penalty given by the DGM. Be brave, erect a gallows here in the morning, execute me."
Background
Yıldırım was detained in 1993 on allegations of being a member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1995. He has been imprisoned for about 33 years. During the failed Kurdish peace process between 2013 and 2015, he was among five prisoners selected at the request of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to form a "secretariat" to be involved in the process. He spent nine days on İmralı Island, where Öcalan is held, before being transferred to another prison because of health problems. He later described the experience in his book “Nine Days on İmralı.” Yıldırım is currently held at İzmir Kırıklar No. 1 F-Type Prison.
(VC/İK)
