Zabit Kisi who is the one that no one heard about him for 108 days after being abducted was sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment. The notes that he wrote about the 108-day torture appeared for the first time…
Cevheri Güven
BOLD – After July 15, many of Erdogan Regime opponents were illegally brought to Turkey by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization. Zabit Kisi is one of them. Zabit Kisi who was living in Kazakhstan was brought to Turkey under the colour of being a member of the Gulen Movement by MIT (Turkish National Intelligence Organization).
On 30 October 2017, Zabit Kisi brought from Kazakhstan to Turkey then no one heard about him for 108 days. During this time, no information was given to her family and lawyers despite formal applications. The state did not accept the possession of the person.
With the initiative of his family in Kazakhstan; Kazakhstan Intelligence Presidency issued an official document indicating that Zabit Kisi was abducted to Turkey under the custody of MIT Officers via Turkish Airlines on 30 September 2017 with 23:32 Almaty-Ankara flight number TT-4010.
Thus, it was clear that Zabit Kisi had been under the custody of the authorities of the Turkish Republic.
His family tried to find him for 108 days. After 108 days, Zabit Kisi who lost 30 kilos appeared at the Ankara Courthouse with traces of torture on his body.
When Zabit Kisi appeared before the judge after 108 days, he was afraid of being murdered and demanded arrest. Even the prison was more preferable for him.
SENTENCED TO 13 YEARS AND 6 MONTHS IMPRISONMENT AND THE TORTURE WAS OBSCURED
After his arrest, Zabit Kisi took a large number of medicines. It took a long time to heal his wounds and resolve the loss of feeling in his hands and feet. After he recovered, he filed a detailed petition for all the tortures he had suffered and filed a criminal complaint.
The torturers and the evidence he submitted were not taken into account. Torture was not investigated. However, Zabit Kisi was sentenced to 13 years and 6 months of imprisonment last week on Friday, June 21, 2019.
When Zabit Kisi was sent to Kandira Prison, a criminal complaint about the torture he experienced was revealed.
108 DAYS IN CONTAINER
‘Zabit Kisi stated that he had been tortured from the moment he was handed over to MIT in Kazakhstan and that he had bled from his genitals for days because of a blow to his groin in the plane.
Zabit Kisi said that he was kept in a container for 108 days at a distance of 6 minutes by car from the airport that they landed in Ankara, and that he was stripped naked, given electricity to his body, left dehydrated for days, exposed to sexual abuse, beaten without interruption, watched while having toilet needs, injected drugs into his body when he was about the die, and then tortured again.
Zabit Kisi, who explained the torture in all its details, said that these people introduced themselves as MIT officials on the plane and that they turned over him to the Ankara Anti-Terror Teams in a place he did not know after 108 days of torture.
He told that: After he was turned over, a document was issued as if he had come to the Ankara Anti-Terror Building himself and then he was subsequently arrested.
Zabit Kisi’s statements coincide with those of those who were abducted with the black transporters and tortured for months. 28 people living in Turkey were abducted and kept in a secret torture center in Ankara. Likewise, more than 80 dissidents were also abducted to Turkey from abroad.
‘Zabit Kisi’s petition to the tribunal contains all of his 108-day sufferings and a criminal complaint against those who were responsible for what he had been through.
THE FULL TEXT OF ZABIT KISI’S TORTURE LETTER: I NO LONGER FIND ODD THE ONES WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE
“My name is Zabıt Kisi, I was taken into custody by the Kazakhstan authorities at the Almaty Airport in of Kazakhstan in line with the arrest warrant that was issued in connection with a number of allegations within the framework of the events that occurred on 15 July atrocious coup attempt. After the judicial proceedings made according to the Kazakhstan legal system, it was decided to return me to Kyrgyzstan.
I was taken into custody again on 30.09.2017 during my return from Kazakhstan Almaty to Kyrgyzstan. I was confiscated and confined to a room. About 22:30, when the aircraft runway completely empty, I was turned over to civilian-looking people coming from Turkey.
I was forcibly put on an airplane with a camouflage pattern that I couldn’t define without any information given and beaten by the people coming in. As soon as we got on the plane, they jumped on me. They pounded my head in while cursing me and my values. I was trying to figure out what was happening. They kept hitting my groin and my head. When I tried to ask something, I was made to shut up by saying ‘you will understand soon …’ with all other cursing words.
I was blindfolded, covering my nostrils. A sack was put on my head and my hands and feet were tightly tied with plastic handcuffs in a way that hurt me. The blows to my groin hurt me so much that I was moaning. I had a terrible headache and I had a hard time keeping my head up. My underwear, which was bloody because of the blow to my groin, was later destroyed. Blood came from my genital organ for days in my underwear.
When I got on the plane, I felt that my whole life fell apart. I didn’t know what was happening, I was defenseless, and I was in front of two murderous people who could do everything they want to me. The torture continued unabated. They wouldn’t even let me move. Although I repeatedly said that I had respiratory distress and discomfort due to the fact that I had a sack over my head and the blindfold which was attached to my nostrils. I told them to tear off the collar of my sweater, but in vain, they never got there. I lost consciousness because I was systematically beaten.
When I woke up, they kept swearing, ‘These will be the last breath you take …’ someone was trying to wake me up by slapping my face and tearing off the collar of my turtleneck sweater to make me breathe. He checked my pulse and called out to the other person, ‘No problem.’ I thought I was dead. Breathing, fainting, or anything else that these thugs care about. These people who told me that they were MIT officers said me that it was in my best to have a sack over my head and that if I saw them, it would be enough reason for them to kill me.
I remember the moment I told myself; ‘I am done in this life’. My God! What was going on, I didn’t understand what I did, who was I, what was I doing, what was the reason for all this torture?
My inability to answer these questions in my head sometimes caused me more pain than the blows I had received. My brain was about to explode, what did these guys want from me, and what was the reason for this relentless torture? They were eating and drinking coffee while I was moaning in pain. Thank goodness the plane was about to land. For a moment I was relieved that this torture would end and they would give me to law enforcement and judicial forces. But the torture was actually going to begin, and I was going to understand it in a short time.
When the plane landed on the runway and the engine was stopped, I was put in a car that I thought was a Transporter-style vehicle as I understand from the height of the seat spacing. I was handcuffed behind my back, blindfolded and there was a sack over my head while two people holding my arms. Approximately 6 minutes after departing, they brought me to a location near the airport which I later described as a container.
This was the container cell in which I was going to struggle to survive for 108 days. It was a place that did not have sunlight and it had a width of about 3 square meters, it was just enough for a person to turn around its axis, like a closed box without a window. This place was no different from the grave for me, the only difference was the damnation that started early.
As soon as we entered the place, they stripped me naked. I couldn’t bring myself to write the harassment they did and said to me on those moments. Two people grabbed my arms and quickly hit me to a wall-like place. Starting from the upper part of my body, they gave electricity to my feet and different areas of my body while increasing the voltage from time to time. In the sitting position, the soles of my feet were brought to downside up position and they crushed my fingers one by one. On the other hand, they continued to curses; ‘we will drive you to extinction, we will… your wife and you will not see her again…’
After a month, my fingers began to heal, and later on, my nails came out. In the sitting position, while my hands were handcuffed behind my back, they stepped on the handcuffs and applied pressure.
I had a hard time holding a spoon while eating food for a few days as the nerves were destroyed. I had to use the medication while I was in the penal institution because of the loss of feeling in my fingers.
When I was naked, they threatened me to rape and attempted to rape me with a hard object. “… boy, you here…, who will come and get you out of here, enjoy it,” they continued their curses.
In the sitting position, while two of them were holding my arms, they hit my back with a hard object and my rib cracked. Every time I breathed, I suffered a lot from the pressure that my ribs put on my lungs. I had severe respiratory distress and heart palpitations due to the fact that they wanted me to respond loudly while they were torturing me with a sack over my head even though I was breathing fast and deep with my mouth.
Again in the sitting position, while two of them were holding my arms, they pressed my head forward and they stepped on my back and applied pressure.
They tortured me accompanied by the music of Turkish national anthem, janissary music, folk songs, and İsmail Türüt’s folk songs. My patriotism is questioned, whereas no one can question the patriotism of others. I don’t remember how many times I have prayed that ‘My God, take my life and save me from these brutes.’ The reasons for death were more severe than death. My only escape from here was to die. I never imagined death would be so attractive to me. God, what these guys wanted from me, I couldn’t understand it, I still couldn’t understand it, I think I’m going to die without realizing it. Because no matter what the circumstances, in order to be able to do such ill-treatment and torture, one must be inhuman.
During the torture; “We are the judge and the prosecutor here, there is no lawyer, no police, you must accept everything to get out of here, do what we say, we torture as long as you don’t die, and we bury you if you die, you remain unsolved, If you do not accept, we will give you medicine from behind and mouth, we give you an injection that your death stays unknown even after the autopsy, they basically write ‘heart attack’ on your death certificate and so on” they said.
The teams were changing, but the torture continued unabated. For 108 days, they walked in three square meters of container cells with their casual shoes that they go to the toilet, and they made me lied on that unhygienic floor and slept. Because they watched me from the camera for 24 hours, they made me not to sleep as well.
Since they were watching me all the time, they did not allow me to lie down or sit down, I was awakened by shouting and loud music and I was forced to stand on my feet for long time periods. I had been using crutches in my daily life because I had bone erosion and fermented avascular necrosis.
They dragged me down on the floor like a dog by applying pressure on my neck while taking me to the toilet. Since I couldn’t settle properly on the squatting toilet with a sack over my head, they dishonored me by asking me to urinate and told me that ‘you will lick what you do outside of the toilet hole.’ They banged my head against the wall when I fail to what they said, whereas a person who sees what to do of course could not do such a thing. They were counting when I was trying to fix my toilet needs and they were getting me out before I finished my needs. They were taking me to the bathroom when they wanted to, not when I wanted to.
They did not allow me to brush my teeth for about 2.5 months, and they did not even allow me to rinse my mouth or rub my teeth with water. They deprived me of personal care. They let me take a shower when they started to feel uncomfortable because of the stench in my mouth and body. When they allowed me to take a shower, they sexually harassed me, especially by forcing me to turn my back towards them while I was naked. I was left naked in the cold also.
I couldn’t cut my nails for 2.5 months, I was forced to shave my pubic hair with bloody machines used by someone else, and they damaged my body due to problems in the machines. They didn’t content with the torture they did to me, they also threatened me with my wife and children who were living abroad. They said that; ‘they would harm them, rape them or abduct them with bribery then they would torture them as I suffer.’
They often repeated that I would be unsolved murder if I saw one of them. If I wouldn’t accept what they said, I was threatened with my mother and father in their 75s with health problems and I was told that I would never see them again. I was asked to report myself after they left me. They even said they could leave me to another country. In case of accepting what they wanted from me, they offered me to give a job in the public institution in a city that I want with a salary of 7-8 thousand TL and if there were any case opened against me or my wife, and they would remove my name from that indictment. They said that they had the authority to do all such things.
Life had no meaning for me. I was desirous of dying. I no longer found odd the ones who committed suicide. I was subjected to physical and psychological torture systematically for 108 days in a 3 square meters place which was like a grave where there was no sunlight. When they did not torture, I could hear the sound of people who were tortured and disabled in the other cells of the container. During this time, I lost weight from 105 kilos to 75 kilos.
Because of my health problems increased due to the torture I subjected to, they gave me drugs that they said were painkillers but I didn’t know what they were actually. In the first days, they did not even give water. There were times that they gave just a small plastic cup of water in a day. How many times I begged for water in vain! During the torture, I have repeatedly told them that I had Langerhans surgery, chemotherapy, femoral head avascular necrosis, an abrasion on my knees and extinction in my lungs but all my words were useless. They continued to increase the amount of torture.
I was having a hard time because of my health problems, but it seemed like they were enjoying the situation that I was in. The more I moaned, the more they tortured. His feelings of mercy seemed to be gone. I have already been experiencing many health problems after the torture. At first, my mental health deteriorated. Even though it’s been 7 months since what I had been through, I still wake up with nightmares at night. I don’t feel safe, I’m always nervous. I’m very afraid that such thing would happen to me again.
I still have health problems since I couldn’t breathe because of torture and a sack over my head. I didn’t know what happened. The effects of the torture that I had been through affected my psychology. I was staring around me with vacuity. They didn’t answer my questions like I wasn’t tortured for 3.5 months. They were acting like everything was normal. They confiscated and did not return the documents, that I had with me at the time of my abduction, which were ‘All the tests I have done between 2007 and 2016 due to Langerhans and femoral head avascular necrosis, the recipes I had received, the documents that contain the information about my family, the documents that contain the information of my children including their school report cards, and my bachelor’s degree diploma from Gazi University Kırşehir Faculty of Education.’
They said that they knew everything about me and that they flagged all my relatives, that they could never get a job in public service. They forcibly made camera shoots and asked me to say; ‘I had not been kidnapped from Almaty that I came voluntarily, I should not apply to the constitutional court, European Convention on Human Rights, and any similar institutions about my abduction, and I should not stir up a problem for them.’ They even said that; they would follow me throughout all my life and if I talk about what I had been really through, they would remove me from the penal institution and they would do the same things again. They were worried about the possibility of unearthing what they did to me.
They accused me such things that I wouldn’t mind. They accused me of being a CIA agent.
After 108 days, on 18.01.2019 at about 20.00 they turned over me to another team while I was blindfolded, handcuffed with plastic handcuffs and there was a sack over my head. The teams changed again. When the third team took over the sack and opened my blindfold, I saw the Ankara Justice Palace’s illuminated sign. I couldn’t look at the street lighting and the illuminated signs because it was disturbing my eyes, even in the darkness because I was held captive out of my will in the dim light since I was blindfolded for 108 days.
I was delivered to the address like a cargo package on a snowy evening. My pants fell off because of the excess weight loss. The team said that they were the Ankara Anti-Terrorist officers, then we went to the prosecutor and then to the Anti-Terror Building. They kept a record as if I had come and surrendered with my own will. As a person who doesn’t know Ankara, how would I find the Anti-Terror Building, as it was in a separate building from the Security Directorate?
When I looked in the mirror I saw that the number my grey hair and beard increased by 50%. I hardly recognized myself. During this period, between 30.09.2017 and 18.01.2018, my family and my lawyer did not hear from me. My mother was informed 20 days after my abduction because of the possibility of a nervous breakdown. Although my family repeatedly applied to the Prime Ministry Communication Center (BIMER) and the Ministry of Justice, no action was taken. There is case file information about me on Amnesty International’s system. As a result of the application to the Kazakhstan office of the United Nations by my family and lawyers, Kazakh officials issued a ticket as if I came to Turkey with my own will. My family and lawyers applied to the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. If you control all border crossings and airports in Turkey, there will be no official record or camera images of me. There is no entrance seal on the related page of my passport that is in the judicial custody. If the Ankara Justice Palace building camera and MOBESE (mobile electronic system integration) records are checked on 18.01.2018, the team that turned me over will be seen on records. And also, if the camera records of the Anti-Terrorism Branch building is checked, it will reveal the fact that I did not come and surrender myself.
In the scope of the file numbered 2017 / 260E and executed by Kocaeli 5th High Criminal Court, I demanded my arrest in my statement that I gave on 03.04.2018 due to the issues related to my torture that indicate that I do not want to be murdered by unknown assailants. My petitions dated 18.04.2018 and 18.05.2018 numbered 2018/4774 in order to be brought to book those who tortured me before the spoliation of evidence were not put in the process. Before the evidence of crime is destroyed or obscured, all my 7 separate demands within the scope of the file were not put in the process which were request number 2018/4895 for the documents about my turn over to the Security Units dated 23.05.2018, the demands I need within the scope of the file 2018/2936 dated 23.05.2018, my demands for the matters I need within the scope of the file numbered 2018/5936 dated 27.06.2018, my demands for the matters I need before spoliation of evidence within the scope of the file numbered 2016/5937 dated 27.06.2018 supplement-1, and my demands for the matters I need before spoliation of evidence within the scope of the file numbered 2016/5938 dated 27.06.2018 supplement-2.
My life safety is still in danger. Because the ones who tortured me systematically, psychologically and physically for 108-day said to me that; “if I talk about what I had been really through, they would remove me from the penal institution and they would torture me again or I would be murdered by unknown assailants inside the penal institution. In this second time, I would have no chance compared to the previous one, even if I was evacuated, they would find me wherever I was and they would not leave me for a lifetime.” My abduction from Almaty Airport in Kazakhstan, 108 days of torture in a three square meter container cell, my ongoing experience with law enforcement, court process and penal institution.
I demand that the ones who brought me to Turkey be found and brought to justice. I demand that these persons who systematically torture me psychologically and physically for 108 days should serve their sentences before the crime and evidence of the crime are obscured. It has deeply hurt me to see that our country has not survived the scourge of torture in the 21st century by experiencing it painfully. In the hope of the arrest of those responsible and the bright days of our country, I respectfully request that the legal process under the jurisdiction of your court be initiated ex officio.
12.07.2018
Zabit Kisi
2nd Numbered F-type High-Security Closed Institution
Kandıra, Kocaeli