Twenty-four-year-old Sözen and his friend Yusuf Alak went to a döner restaurant in İzmir, owned by Mustafa Bağcı. Arguing over the bill, the three men started to fight, and Alak fired a gun and hit Bağcı in the leg. Alak and Sözen then left the scene on a motorbike. While Sözen was detained by officers at his house, Alak is still at large with the gun.Kept in a detention room in the Gümüşpala District Police Department, Sözen asked for water from officer C.M. While the officer was giving him water, Sözen allegedly grabbed the officer's throat and took his pistol. Firing the weapon into the air, Sözen then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Sözen had five previous arrests for crimes involving drugs, theft and robbery.
Sözen’s family: He was killed
Gathering in front of the police department, around 200 of Sözen's relatives blamed the police for his death, claiming Sözen, a father of two children, would not commit suicide. Officers from the department as well as additional police teams arrived at the scene to prevent Sözen's relatives from entering the police department.
Sözen's mother and sister claimed he was killed by the police. Gurbet Balaman, Sözen's sister, said: “Five police cars arrived. Without having a search warrant, they went to his home and detained him. They took him to the police department, and after an hour, they called us to say he committed suicide. My brother was not a person to commit suicide. The police are responsible for this incident. How can he grab a pistol from an officer?”
Another relative, Mehmet Ata Sözen, said: “We went to the police department, but they did not give us any information about his situation. They did not tell us why he was detained. We thought nothing bad could happen to him while at the police department, yet we learned he died.”
The young man's body was taken to the İzmir Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) Morgue for an autopsy after being examined by a prosecutor.
