BOY'S KILLING IN KIZILTEPE ATTRACTS NATIONAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 006820

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/08/2025
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL TU
SUBJECT: BOY'S KILLING IN KIZILTEPE ATTRACTS NATIONAL
ATTENTION


Classified by DCM Robert S. Deutsch, E.O. 12958, for reasons
1.4 (b) and (d).

This cable is from AmConsul Adana.


1. (SBU) Summary: In an incident that local security
officials initially described as a clash between police and
terrorists, and under circumstances still being investigated,
Turkish security officials shot to death 12-year-old Ugur
Kaymaz and his father, Ahmet,were killed by gunfire on
November 21 in Kiziltepe, Mardin province. Coming just weeks
before the European Union's decision about opening accession
talks with Turkey, the incident has drawn national media
attention, with calls for an investigation into the
circumstances surrounding the boy's death. Whether or not
Ahmet Kaymaz had connections with the PKK, and exactly what
happened the afternoon of November 21 are not yet clear, but
a Kiziltepe prosecutor -- who, for the moment, enjoys the
confidence of the Kaymaz family's lawyer -- is leading the
official investigation, while the Human Rights Association
has already filed its report, calling the deaths
"extra-judicial killings." Four security officials in Mardin
have been suspended pending results of the prosecutor's
investigation. The level of official and national media
attention the case has received is striking compared to the
past, when such a case would have been largely ignored. Also
striking is the speed with which an investigation was opened
and officials were suspended. The case raises troubling
questions about how deeply the security services have
absorbed reform. End summary.

Clash? Deliberate Killing? Something In Between?
-------------- --------------


2. (U) In an incident that local security officials
initially described as a clash between police and terrorists,
and under circumstances still being investigated, Turkish
security officials shot to death 12-year-old Ugur Kaymaz and
his father Ahmetwere killed by gunfire on November 21 in
Kiziltepe, Mardin province. According to the HRA, Ahmet
Kaymaz,s home had been under surveillence since November 20,
after officials allegedly received a tip that terrorists may
have been using the home and planning "an illegal activity."
Exactly what happened is not yet clear, but immediately after
the shooting, officials stated that police killed "two
terrorists"had been killed by police as they planned to
attack a government installation; those statements were
later amended to indicated that "two terrorists" had been
killed after not obeying a halt order. As reports emerged
that one of the dead was a boy of 12, the "two terrorists"
expression was dropped. The Human Rights Association (HRA)
was quick to dispatch a team and release a detailed report
alleging that an extra-judicial killing had occurred, but an
official accounting of what happened is now in the hands of a
Kiziltepe prosecutor investigating the case.


3. (U) Human rights groups insist that Ahmet -- a trucker --
and his son Ugur were simply outside of their home loading a
truck for Ahmet's upcoming trip to Iskenderun. They say that
the two were killed from close range by bullets from a
nine-millimeter pistol, and that Ugur was wearing slippers
and helping his father when reportedly up to 13 bullets
struck him. Coming just weeks before the European Union's
decision about opening accession talks with Turkey, the
incident has drawn national media attention, with calls for a
thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the
boy's death. In addition to the investigation being carried
out by one of Kiziltepe's prosecutors, members of
Parliament's Human Rights Commission, as well as a separate
delegation of opposition Republican Peoples, Party
(CHP)representatives parliamentarians, traveled to Kiziltepe
to look into the matter. (Note: The Parliamentary
delegation has reportedly since opined that no clashes had
occurred. End note). Even Prime Minister Erdogan weighed
in, stating that a 12-year-old boy could not be a terrorist.

HRA Lawyer: Prosecutor Trying Her Best
--------------


4. (C) In a December 2-3 visit to Kiziltepe, poloff met with
local officials, as well as with Huseyin Cihangir, Kaymaz
family attorney and Mardin,s HRA representative. Cihangir
said the Kaymaz family called him just one hour after the
incident occurred. Cihangir also noted that he had seen
Kaymaz two days before the incident. As Kaymaz prepared for
his upcoming trip, said Cihangir, he came to the HRA office
to hand over a Power of Attorney for the claim he had
recently submitted to the Compensation Committee. Poloff
queried Cihangir as to whether Kaymaz had ever been in need
of HRA legal counsel previously. Cihangir replied that in
1997, when Cihangir had been an internstagaire in Diyarbakir,
Kaymaz had been detained for two or three months, accused of
harboring terrorists. Cihangir claimed that Kaymaz was
ultimately acquitted of those charges. (Note: We are not
able to confirm that independently. End note.)


5. (C) Cihangir told poloff that the Kiziltepe prosecutor
in charge of this investigation, Ozlem Pinar Kaktanir Akkoc,
is an "idealist who is working with great sacrifice." He
stated that for the first time in his experience, he was
generally very pleased with a prosecutor's level of
cooperation with him. The night of the incident, the
prosecutor invited Cihangir to accompany her to the police
station while the evidence was being transferred from the
police station to the court building. Despite the upbeat
assessmentof one member
of the Public Prosecutor's office, Cihangir said that he and
his partner applied for the case file three days previously,
but that access had been refused on the grounds that the file
is confidential. Usually, he said, his team gets almost
immediate access to files of the cases on which they are
working. He argued that even if there were confidential
information in the file, such as the names of the officers
involved in the operation, it could be blacked out and the
bulk of the information released.


6. (C) He did not know how many officers had been involved
in the incident, but he wanted to see all of them held
accountable. He claimed there were eyewitnesses in the case
who could say what had happend there, but that they may not
be willing to come forward publicly withoutif adequate
witness protectionis not provided. Cihangir insists that
this was a deliberate killing. The weapon of choice during
operations, he said, is an assault long-barrelled rifle,
whereas the bullets which killed the Ahmet and Ugur Kaymaz
were from a nine-millimeter pistol, he claimed. In addition,
he claimedsaid both we killed from extremely close range.
Moreover, if there had been clashes or an exchange of
gunfire, there would have been more bullets marks in the
area, he said. Finally, he claims police brought along arms
confiscated in previous operations and placed them in Ugur,s
hands as he lay dead to make it look like the boy had been
firing upon police. Kaymaz's brother asked Cihangir, "What
if I had been the one helping my brother load the truck? If
the two of us had been killed in similar circumstances, this
would have been a closed case of two terrorists killed."

Four Security Officials Suspended
--------------


7. (C) Cihangir said that the Ministry of Interior had
reportedly dispatched two inspectors to Kiziltepe two days
after the incident to conduct an administrative
investigation. As a result of that investigation, said
Cihangir, four Mardin Security Directorate special team
members, including a Deputy Security Director, were suspended
from their posts on December 1 pending results of the
prosecutor's investigation into the incident. Cihangir is
pushing for charges of "deliberate killing" in the case,
which would carry a heavier sentence than, for example, a
charge of "exceeding legal self-defense.8 He argues that
after the incident, officials kept talking about clashes
having occurred because firing during an operation brings a
lower sentence. When the prosecutor has finished her
investigation, she will send her conclusions to the Chief
Public Prosecutor in Mardin, and the Mardin Heavy Crimes
felony court will have jurisdiction, said Cihangir. If there
are no indictments in the case -- for example, due to lack of
evidence ) he said his team would reject such a decision and
appeal to a higher felony court and eventually to the
European Court of Human Rights, if necessary.

Sub-Governor Blames those who got family involved with the PKK
-------------- --------------


8. (C) Kiziltepe Sub-Governor Engin Durmaz told poloff
matter of factly that "Little Ugur is gone, and we can't
bring him back." He seemed proud of the fact that Kiziltepe
-- with a population that, due to migration from rural areas,
had grown over the years as if it were a "city on steroids"
-- had remained stable despite the level of passion felt by
citizens about this event. Demonstrators had been on the
streets in the thousands just after the incident but things
were calm now, he said. He had taken a humanitarian
approach, he said, allowing citizens to approach his office
and, upon hearing that some protestors were on the way to his
house, asking his wife to prepare tea so they could invite
them in. He seemed to believe, though, that human rights
groups were taking advantage of the incident, and he said
that some people just didn't know how to exercise some of
their newly gained freedom. He had tried to reach out to the
community, he said, but said he could not find anyone with
whom to have a dialogue. Durmaz expressed sadness that this
happened to Ugur, but implied that Ahmet Kaymaz had indeed
been involved with the PKK in some way and that
responsibility for the boy's death lay with those who got
Kaymez involved with "the organization." The Sub-Governor
reminded us that, as President Bush said after 9/11, "You're
either with us or against us" and that there were real
terrorist attacks in the region against which citizens had to
be protected. "We have nothing to hide," said Durmaz as he
welcomed all the inquiries and visits from outside
delegations.

Mehmet Ali Birand On the Line...
--------------


9. (C) Kiziltepe's pro-Kurdish DEHAP party Mayor Cihan
Sincar met with us between visiting the Kaymaz family and
participating via telephone on a national television show
hosted by Mehmet Ali Birand during which the incident would
be discussed. Though an investigation has been launched in
the case, the Mayor claimed that to date no witnesses on from
the scene, including the family, had been called in to make a
statement yet. She was unsatisfied with the pace of the
investigation, and was convinced that this incident was the
result of a deliberate killing by elements within the
security forces that were against Turkey's accession to the
EU. She was unimpressed that Mardin's Deputy Security
Director had been suspended, claiming that he certainly could
not have done anything without his boss' permission. She
said that people really want to see someone detained or
brought before the court for this boy's death. It seemed
that despite the sadness associated with the death of someone
so young, tThe Mayor appearedwas energized by the level of
attention the case was receiving. Regarding the proximity to
the EU decision, she said, "Let the reforms begin in
Kiziltepe."


10. (C) In a December 2 meeting with poloff, Kiziltepe Chief
Public Prosecutor Onder Kemal Segucu acknowledged that
"public opinion is getting impatient" about the
investigation. Every detail about the official investigation
is currently confidential, said Segucu. In fact, he said,
his office might later take a look at press reporting about
the case to see if any newspapers had given away classified
information that should not have been published. When poloff
queried as to how the law worked in such instances, he backed
off the topic, saying they might not look into the press
reporting on the case. He was cordial and open to meeting
with us, but clearly a bit nervous and declined to accompany
us to the door when we left, stating that one of his
colleagues had been criticized for appearing in a newspaper
greeting a visiting delegation looking into the case.


11. (C) Comment: It is encouraging that the prosecutor
investigating this case has impressed such a hard-to-please
group as the HRA. As the investigation heads into its third
week, however, with no one yet charged, the Kiziltepe
community, currently encouraged by the high-level attention
to the case, may become skeptical. An investigation that
comes up short of indicting someone on criminal charges will
not satisfy the local public. Ugur has become a symbol for
"everyboy" in the heavily-Kurdish Southeast: the reaction
from the street is that "that could be my son." If the media
is any indication, the case has resonated outside the
Southeast too.


12. (C) The level of official and national media attention
this case has received is striking ) and positive. In the
past, such a case would have been largely ignored, except by
regional human rights and legal groups. Also striking is the
speed with which the government opened an investigation and
suspended security officials pending the outcome. We will
need to see how thoroughly and fairly the authorities carry
out their investigation. The killing itself raises troubling
questions about how deeply the security services have
absorbed reform, not only in the Southeast, but throughout
Turkey. End Comment.
EDELMAN