'What was extraordinary was not that people were dropped from a helicopter'

Drawing: Timur Çelik

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The Coordination of Union for Democracy (DİB) has released a report about the two people who were allegedly dropped from a military helicopter in the mostly Kurdish-populated eastern province of Van last month.

Both people were treated in intensive care after the incident. While Osman Şiban (50) has recovered, Servet Turgut (64) has lost his life.

A delegation from the DİB interviewed Turgut's family, including his spouse, who had never publicly spoken to anyone about the incident.

"Had they sent him to prison for 20 years, we would visit him. If they shot him with a gun, we would be sad that he died. But breaking all the bones of his body... Why would they do this to a person, what kind of people are those who did this? I want those who were in the helicopter on that day and committed this crime to be revealed and tried," said his spouse, according to the report.

The four "extraordinary" elements of the incident

"What makes this incident interesting is not that the practice of dropping from a helicopter. Because starting from the '90s, it has been often alleged that organization members who were caught alive or people who were considered to be members of the organization were dropped from a helicopter," noted the report.

According to the report, the four elements that made this case extraordinary were that those who were said to be dropped from a helicopter were "ordinary villagers," that they didn't die, that they were taken to the hospital with serious injuries and that it was the security officers who made the hospital record the expression of "injury as a result of falling from a helicopter."

"Eyewitnesses say that both of them were detained while in a healthy state and they saw them being subjected to maltreatment while they were being put in the helicopter.

"Servet Turgut's brother, cousin and spouse saw his body after death. Their testimony is that 'There were no unbroken bones in his body.' It is obvious that all these fractures cannot happen just because of falling.

"It is understood that both two aggrieved people were subjected to beating before being put into the helicopter and heavy torture in the helicopter, that they were dropped from the helicopter during the landing and that the maltreatment continued after the landing."

About Servet Turgut and Osman Şiban

Osman Şiban is 50 years old and has eight children and Servet Turgut was 64 years old although his civil registry record says he was 55, according to the report.

Both had to leave their villages during the conflict in the Kurdish-majority eastern and southeastern regions and as many villages were burned down or evacuated in that period. Both had migrated to the southern Mersin province.

After a partial détente starting from 2005, they began to do agriculture in their villages five or six months a year, as permitted by the authorities and continued until 2015 when the government ended the "solution process" to the Kurdish question and the conflict intensified again.

"The ban on staying in villages during the winter months continues in all villages and hamlets in the region," noted the report.

Servet Turgut and his relatives were doing small-scale animal husbandry and using their land to grow grass for their animals, it added.

The report pointed out that after Van became a "metropolitan municipality," its villages became "neighborhoods," which meant that animal husbandry was no longer allowed in those villages. Hundreds of thousands of people in the region who were prevented from doing animal husbandry and whose connection with their villages were restricted had to leave their hometowns for other cities, it said.

What was done to Turgut and Şiban was aimed at intimidating the people of the region, the report noted.

The DİB further noted that there was not an ongoing judicial or administrative investigation into the incident, citing an attorney.

What happened?

Taken into custody by the soldiers who launched an operation in the Çatak district of Van province on September 11, Osman Şiban and Servet Turgut were found in the intensive care unit of the Van Regional Training and Research Hospital two days later.

Speaking about the issue, Osman Şiban said that he and Servet Turgut were dropped from a helicopter after they had been detained and tortured by soldiers in Turkey's Kurdish-majority eastern province of Van.

While the "Intensive Care" section of the report has referred to "falling from a higher place" as a complaint, the report has further said that "they were brought to the emergency department by paramedics upon being informed by the security personnel after they had fallen from a higher place."

In a written statement about the allegation that two people were dropped from a military helicopter, the Governor's Office of Van has announced that a legal and administrative investigation has been launched.

While Şiban has recovered, Turgut lost his life on September 30. (AÖ/VK)