Police officers from Zonguldak Police Department detained A.T. in a raid to his house in last August over links to faith-based Gülen movement and took him to a forest where he was severely tortured.
According to a story in Aktif Haber website, the torture and maltreatment in prison to A.T. was recently revealed by his family and lawyer.
A.T. told family that he was taken to a forest near Zonguldak city after the police raid to his house in August 2016 and he was beaten badly by police officers who threatened him to sexually abuse his wife and daughter if he fails to sign a pre-arrenged testimony.
Ordered by former Zonguldak Police Chief Osman Ak, police teams from the Department of Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime (KOM) and Department of Counter-terror (TEM) were present when A.T. was illegally taken to the forest and tortured.
“It was around 10 pm when I was taken to a forest. I was handcuffed. Three police officers out of five started to beat me to death. Due to pain on my head and back, I fainted several times. They harassed me with nightstick. They abused me and my family. I heard one police officer’s name was Necdet and another’s Battal,” he said.
Police officers also told A.T. that they would kill him and throw to a cave in the forest where wild animals can eat and nobody finds him.
A.T. was taken to police custody in Zonguldak Police Department where torture and maltreatment continued for 28 days. He lost weight as he was not allowed to have medication as he was a high blood pressure patient and underwent spinal surgery.
“The torture that made me to be ashamed of myself continued in [Zonguldak] police department. I was not given water. I was not allowed to take a shower for 28 days. I was not allowed to go to toilet. Only a stale bagel and two spoon of canned beans were give to eat. They hit me at the back despite being informed about my spinal surgery,” he said.
Underlining that he was subjected to sexual harassment during detention and as prisoner, A.T. said that he was detained as part of an operation carried out by Zonguldak Chief Public Prosecutor Hüsnü Hakan Yağız and the tortures continued even after Zonguldak Police Chief Ak was replaced by Ahmet Metin Turanlı.
According to Turkeypurge.com, Police chief Ak initially came to public attention when he was dismissed from profession in the late 1990s after he was accused of engaging in spying and illegal wiretapping of at least 963 high-ranking state officials, including the country’s prime minister and president.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called the coup “a great gift of God” and pinned the blame on the Gülen movement, inspired by US-based Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
Although the Gülen movement strongly denies having any role in the putsch, the government accuses it of having masterminded the foiled coup. Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, called for an international investigation into the coup attempt, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
About 130,000 people have been purged from state bodies, 92,000 detained and 45,000 arrested since the coup attempt. Arrestees include journalists, judges, prosecutors, police and military officers, academics, governors and a comedian. (turkishminute.com) Feb. 28, 2017
