Turkish authorities detained 21 suspects Thursday in a reopened investigation into an alleged cover-up and evidence tampering in the 2018 death of a retired major general’s son at a construction site in western Turkey, Turkish Minute reported.
According to Justice Minister Akın Gürlek, 26 detention warrants were issued after new findings that evidence had been tampered with in the case of 26-year-old Dorukhan Büyükışık, whose body was found in İzmir’s Narlıdere district on May 13, 2018. Twenty-one of the 26 suspects had been detained, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.
Büyükışık’s body was found at a construction site, a housing project owned by the Tanyer family, which Turkish media outlets have described as close to the government.
An indictment accepted in 2025 said Büyükışık did not die by suicide but was beaten to death at a Tanyer-owned construction site, charging five construction workers with murder.
A separate case against eight police officers accused of abuse of duty had later been merged with the murder trial of the construction workers.
In April a court overturned a previous decision not to prosecute members of the Tanyer family and other suspects.
The court’s decision followed years of legal challenges by Büyükışık’s father, retired Maj. Gen. Ethem Büyükışık.
The operation comes amid a government push to re-examine unresolved killings and suspicious death cases that have attracted public anger.
Justice Minister Gürlek said the ministry had created an Unsolved Crimes Investigation Department and that the unit had received 638 files from courts.
Some Turkish media commentators have cast the sudden revival of long-stalled files as a sign of power struggles within President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
