The new Turkey
Client A.K

2-apr-19

Cases of Torture Based on Information Received from Lawyers Human Rights Watch spoke to five lawyers who shared their observations about abuses against their 5 clients (cases 6-10) and other detainees in police custody in Ankara in April and May 2017, on suspicion of links with the alleged Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ). We also spoke to another lawyer in central Anatolia about abuses against his client accused of links to the PKK in March 2017. The clients are all in pretrial detention, so Human Rights Watch was unable to speak to them directly.

Lawyer E told Human Rights Watch that when he visited his client A.K., a police officer, in custody in the Ankara Anti-Terror branch on April 29, he had noticed that A.K. could not stand or sit properly. A.K. had informed him that he had been beaten, stripped, made to squat over a bottle, and been threatened with rape with the bottle.42

The lawyer had filed a complaint on May 8, but on May 30, in a decision seen by Human Rights Watch, the prosecutor refused to pursue a prosecution on the grounds that A.K. had not alleged ill-treatment while he was detained, and that there was no evidence of it from security camera footage and doctor's reports.43 A.K. has appealed against the prosecutor's decision. The appeal, seen by Human Rights Watch, focuses on the fact that the prosecutor entirely overlooked the fact that a private medical report obtained immediately after his period in custody identified that A.K. had a broken rib, and that he had stated that his interrogation had taken place in a room with no security cameras

Source:HRW, In Custody Police Torture and Abductions in Turkey