DİYARBAKIR - 83-year-old Mehmet Emin Özkan, who has been in prison for 26 years and is held responsible for the death of Brigadier General Bahtiyar Aydın, who was shot by JİTEM, said, “The state is waiting for my death so that the case can be closed. The state has chosen a victim for itself."

 

Mehmet Emin Özkan was tried and sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment in the case of the Lice Massacre, which started with the assassination of Brigadier General Bahtiyar Aydın in 1993. The massacre that took place and the fact that Özkan was tried in this case came to the fore again with the statements of a former intelligence officer who said that he was among the units established to investigate unsolved murders in 2008-2014.

 

In the information he gave, Bahtiyar Aydın pointed out that the 7th Corps Commander Hasan Kundakçı and his former deputy Chief of General Staff İlker Başbuğ were responsible for the assassination and the events that unfold, and that the former intelligence officer, Kundakçı and Başbuğ organized the massacre, spoiled the evidence of the crime, and that they helped officers who were prosecuted about the incident to be acquitted. He also stated that Mehmet Emin Özkan was chosen as the victim.

 

Özkan, who was arrested based only on the statements of two confessors, was sentenced to life imprisonment, although these people said that they gave their statements under pressure in court. The health condition of 83-year-old Özkan, who has been in prison for 26 years and has many serious illnesses, is getting worse every day under prison conditions.

 

Nevzat and Murat Özkan, two sons of Mehmet Emin Özkan, who has 5 children, spoke to the Mezopotamya Agency (MA) about what they have been going through since the day of the Lice massacre.

 

LICE WENT UP IN SMOKE

 

Nevzat Özkan, the youngest of the Özkan family living in the Sisê (Yolçatı) village of Lice, said that he was a child when the massacre took place, and that he saw smoke covering the district because their houses and workplaces were set on fire. Explaining that on the morning of the massacre (October 22, 1993) the soldiers came to the village and started to search their house, Özkan said that after a short time Lice went up in smoke and guns exploded. Özkan said, "Those soldiers left the village and returned to Lice. Entry and exit to Lice was prohibited. No one, not even the deputies, were allowed to enter Lice for 3-4 days." Expressing that there were rumours about what happened in Lice such as "PKK members raided Lice, the brigadier general was shot and Lice was burned because of this", Özkan said that when they left after the roads were cleared, they saw that the district was totally destroyed and everything was burned. Özkan said, “In lice houses are usually like huts. Those houses were all in shambles. At that time, 14 civilians were killed and about 30 people were injured. It was called a conflict, but for some reason, neither PKK members nor soldiers were killed or injured."

 

'WE WAKE UP EVERYDAY IN FEAR'

 

Expressing that they wake up every morning with in fear of getting bad news from their father due to his health problems, Özkan said, “Even the prison administration is surprised by how they still keep him in prison. We thought that he would be released after the photos of him carried to the hospital in handcuffs, but he is still in there."

 

Özkan also stated that the hospital which gave a medical report about his father that he can not remain in prison, has renewed its report and the new report said he is healthy enough to be in prison as a result of pressure. Özkan said, “There is no such seriously ill and elderly person in any of the Turkish prisons as my father. We understand that the Forensic Medicine Department cannot give a report that proves he can't stay in prison because of the people mentioned by this intelligence officer. The whole country saw, the person who committed the Sivas Massacre, the murderer of so many people was released because of age and illness. However, it has been reported that my father who is certainly innocent of the crime he was accused of, could remain in prison for 25 years despite so much illness. This is an indication of how rotten the law is in Turkey."

 

ÖZKAN: TURKISH STATE CHOSE ME AS A VICTIM

 

Özkan also stated that they will continue following the case of their father no matter what, and if necessary, they will apply to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Expressing that he was also held in the same prison with their father, like his other two brothers, Özkan said: "We were more like friends than father and son. Sometimes we talked about his case for hours. He told me: 'Turkish state is waiting for my death so that the file will be closed. They will not release me, they are waiting for my death. They chose me as a victim to cover up their crime. Özkan continued,' My father does not believe in the justice and law in Turkey because of what he went through."

 

 

MA / Ceylan Şahinli