The new Turkey
Client B.O

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 A told Human Rights Watch:

My client B.O. was detained on 26 April and held at the Ankara Financial Crimes Branch, in connection with a FETÖ operation. When I visited him, he was brought into the room and cried because he assumed he was going to be interrogated and tortured. He hadn't believed he would really be meeting with a lawyer. Because there was no police officer present during our meeting, he was able to tell me what the other detainees had been through.

He told me that they had been taken in turn for interrogation and had come back recounting how they had been stripped naked, sexually assaulted with a bottle, and beaten. He said that one had been beaten on the head so much that for days he vomited and was very sick. I reported what he said to the Ankara Bar Association because I was afraid for my client. On May 6, the court remanded him to custody and he is held in Sincan F-type [maximum security] prison.35

B.O. testified before the Ankara Criminal Judge of the Peace No. 2 on May 6, 2017, which remanded him and nine others to pretrial detention. The court record (2017/528) shows that among the nine, two men, S.K. and Y.S., told the court they had been ill-treated in police custody. Each said they were stripped naked, threatened with rape, and insulted.
The judge asked no questions, and there is no indication that he attempted to initiate an investigation into their claims.36

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