Mustafa Yilmaz, a Turkish national abducted in the capital city of Ankara in February 2019, is revealed to be in the Ankara Police Department, 9 months after his disappearance.
His wife Sumeyye Yilmaz announced the news on her social media account saying, “They just called me from the anti-terror department. My spouse Mustafa Yilmaz has been found in the Karapurcek Police Station at 11:30 PM. Now he is said to be under custody in the anti-terror branch of Ankara Police Department.”
Throughout the ’90s, hundreds of Kurdish people became victims of enforced disappearance in Turkey, abducted by rogue figures with Toros brand (an infamous white-colored Renault model in 90s) cars that belonged to the police, never to be seen again.
The White Toros abductions have made a comeback in present-day Turkey with the “Black Transporters.”Twenty-nine abductions have been recorded in the past three years with these vehicles. Some of the abductees are still unaccounted for.The majority of them reappeared in the units of the Ankara Police Department after a period under torture that lasted approximately six months, in an underground facility in Ankara.
According to the testimony of the victims, their abductors were the members of Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MIT), and after months of torture to force them to sign testimonies written by them, they handed the abductees over to the Ankara Police Department. The cases of abductees who disappeared in February differ from others. These people were abducted as their families and neighbors witnessed the incidents play out.
Gökhan Türkmen, Yasin Ugan, Özgür Kaya, Erkan Irmak, Mustafa Yılmaz, and Salim Zeybek were abducted on February 7, February 12, February 16, February 18, February 20, 2019 respectively.In July this year, the spouses of Ugan, Kaya, Zeybek, and Irmak also announced that their husbands were in custody in the Ankara Police Department.
The court arrested the four and sent them to Sincan prison in Ankara, on terror charges over their alleged ties to the Gulen movement, accused by Erdogan administration of being the culprits behind the failed 2016 coup.
There were no words on the whereabouts of Mustafa Yılmaz and Gökhan Türkmen back then. Turkmen is still unaccounted for after Yılmaz’s reappearance.
“THESE CANNOT BE MY HUSBAND’S WORDS”
Sümeyye Yılmaz is renown for the fight she gave over her husband’s abduction. Besides her efforts on the national and international level, she attended panel discussions and public protests, resorting to all means to have her voice heard.
Yılmaz rejoiced over the news of her husband being alive after all, assuming her husband would be arrested, she still considers seeing him alive worth everything.
Stating that the pressure on her spouse is still ongoing, Yılmaz describes his state after 9 months of disappearance saying, “He has lost too much weight, 20 to 25 kilograms. His skin was so white. Must have been held in a place with no sunlight. His hands were so cold. He got anemia due to malnutrition.”Sumeyye Yılmaz went on to tell that her husband’s testimony was forcibly taken, “He asked me to delete my social media accounts. He doesn’t want the lawyer I hired. These cannot be my husband’s words. They abducted him, tortured him and forced him to sign this testimony. His abduction by a black transporter is visible on CCTV footage.
Now they want me to believe that my husband showed up alone after 9 months and turned himself over to the police. I do not believe this scenario.”Mustafa Yılmaz is currently being held in a cell by himself. He doesn’t want to see the lawyer hired by his family. He turned down a meeting with the Ankara Bar Association as well
.Abductees like Mustafa Yılmaz who were interrogated under torture, later get arrested and put in solitary confinement. They are not allowed to see their families unsupervised. They always meet under the supervision of a police officer or a guard, in a bid to prevent them from telling that they have been through.
Rights advocates and lawyers also are not allowed to monitor their hearings due to the confidentiality orders issued over their trials.
There have been 29 cases of enforced disappearance during the post-coup crackdown. The names of abductees and their disappearance dates are as follows;
Sunay Elmas, January 27, 2016
Ayhan Oran, November 1, 2016
Mustafa Özgür Gültekin, December 21, 2016
Durmuş Ali Çetin, May 17, 2017
Hüseyin Kötüce, February 28, 2017
Mesut Geçer, March 26, 2017
Turgut Çapan, March 31, 2017
Önder Asan, April 1, 2017
Cengiz Usta, April 4, 2017
Mustafa Özben, May 9, 2017
Fatih Kılıç, May 14, 2017
Cemil Koçak, June 5, 2017
Murat Okumuş, June 16, 2017
Enver Kılıç, June 30, 2017
Zabit Kişi, September 30, 2017
Hıdır Çelik, December 6, 2017
Ümit Horzum, December 6, 2017
Ayten Öztürk, March 13, 2018
Orcun Şenyücel, April 21, 2018
Hasan Kala, July 20, 2018
Fahri Mert, August 12, 2018
Ahmet Ertürk, November 16, 2018
Gökhan Türkmen, February 7, 2019
Yasin Ugan, February 12, 2019
Özgür Kaya, February 12, 2019
Erkan Irmak, February 16, 2019
Mustafa Yılmaz, February 18, 2019
Salim Zeybek, February 20, 2019
Yusuf Bilge Tunç, August 6, 2019