The new Turkey
Client Ö.A

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.

Another case concerns Ö.A., 29, an accountant for a private Istanbul-based company. The record of his interrogation by the Ankara Anti-terror branch on April 13, and then on April 14 before the Ankara Criminal Peace Judge No. 2, which remanded him to pretrial detention, records Ö.A.'s description of having been beaten by the police:

I was hit, and they punched me in the mouth. I was sworn at and insulted. A doctor's report records that my lip was bleeding. I wasn't allowed to go to the toilet. Then when taken to the anti-terror branch a lot of them beat me
and the others. They threatened me and my wife with sexual assault. I again got a doctor's report recording that I was beaten on the head. After I met with my lawyer I was hit.45

Ö.A. is being held in Amasya E-type closed prison. He sent his lawyers a hand-written undated three-page description of his time in police custody, naming a police officer and the room where he claims he was ill-treated:

We were taken to D Bureau. D Bureau is 60 meters square, and had 7 or 8 tables around the edges and an empty space in the middle of the room. As soon as I entered, Kamil, whom I understood was the head of the D bureau, said, "Go over there, you son of a bitch. Kneel down." He accused me of being a member of FETÖ/Parallel State Structure. They swore at me and beat me to make me accept the accusations, and asked me names of people I had never heard of. I rejected these accusations and incidents because I had no connection with FETÖ/Parallel State Structure. At that they continued to increase the dose of torture. 7-8 people surrounded me and beat me.46

His lawyers have filed another formal complaint, although Ö.A. had already complained
before the court that had remanded him to pretrial detention.

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