New discovery of human remains to cast light on unsolved murders

Several pieces of bone and skulls were accidentally discovered on Wednesday in an area where the former headquarters of JİTEM, which is believed to have been responsible for thousands of unsolved murders in eastern and southeastern Turkey in the '90s, was located in Diyarbakır.

Six skulls and several pieces of bone were found by laborers who were digging at the site to lay pipes in the historic İçkale neighborhood of the Sur district. After police were informed about the bones, the site was cordoned off and the remains were put in evidence bags on the order of a prosecutor's office. The unearthed bones and skulls will be sent to the Council of Forensic Medi-cine (ATK) after being examined by a prosecutor. After DNA tests are taken in İstanbul, it will be attempted to indentify the bodies by taking samples from the relatives of missing persons in Turkey's Southeast.

The Diyarbakır Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday commissioned a specially-authorized public prosecutor to investigate the case and ordered the continuation of excavation work in the area in search of more bones.

Two more skulls were discovered during Thursday’s digging at the site, bringing the total number of the skulls to eight. Since the skulls were found near the basement of the former JİTEM building, prosecutors think that the bodies could have been buried there in tunnels that were dug underneath the building.

The İçkale neighborhood, which used to serve as a prison, courthouse and JİTEM headquarters until 1999, was handed over the Culture and Tourism Ministry in 1999. It is said that hundreds of people were tortured at the former JİTEM headquarters. Although İçkale was known to be one of the execution sites of JİTEM, no excavations in search of human remains were allowed in the region because it is a historic site.

Human Rights Association (İHD) Diyarbakır Branch Chairman Raci Bilici told Today’s Zaman that the İHD will process the applications from the relatives of the missing persons and file requests with the authorities for more excavations in the region.

Bilici said the area where the remains were found was where JİTEM was headquartered and that the place was used for the interrogation and execution of individuals while he called on the relatives of the missing people to apply either to the İHD or prosecutors for more excavations at the site.

Abdülkadir Aygan, a former Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) member who had confessed to crimes, joined JİTEM and now lives in Sweden, has said on many occasions that the JİTEM headquarters was used as a base for interrogation and torture during the ‘90s and that at least 15 bodies were buried in its vicinity.

About the latest discovery of the human remains in Diyarbakır, Aygan said it is very likely that they belong to people killed by JİTEM.

“We used to hear the screams of the people who were being tortured. In order to avoid teams of [late Diyarbakır police chief] Gaffar Okkan, JİTEM members might have buried the bodies of the people they killed in the area where the courthouse is located,” Aygan said.

He said Okkan was very disturbed by the illegal activities of JİTEM and took measures to stop the killing of people by this illegitimate organization.

Due to the measures taken by Okkan, Aygan said JİTEM was no longer able to take the bodies of the people it killed outside the city, so it might have buried them around the courthouse building in Saraykapı.

Analysts believe JİTEM was initially intended to facilitate the military’s fight against the terrorist PKK in the Southeast. They say JİTEM was given special powers, a high degree of immunity from accountability and a secret budget. However, unlimited power and little or no supervision eventually turned JİTEM into an instrument to terrorize locals in the predominantly Kurdish region.

Many eyewitness accounts following disappearances and murders in the area point to JİTEM involvement, and human rights groups say some 1,800 people disappeared during the 1990s in Turkey’s Southeast. Analysts, locals and researchers also agree that JİTEM appears to have been a major player in the illegal trade in the area -- drugs and arms trafficking in particular.

The alleged founders of JİTEM, including ret. Gen. Veli Küçük and ret. Col. Arif Doğan, are currently suspects in the ongoing trial into Ergenekon, an illegal deep-state criminal gang charged with plotting to overthrow the government by fomenting chaos. JİTEM is thought to be the strongest military instrument in the expansive Ergenekon structure. However, the military consistently denied the existence of JİTEM in the past despite a growing body of evidence suggesting its existence.

A total of 938 pieces of bone and skulls have been unearthed in the past few years in other areas in the Southeast. ATK announced that 530 of those remains are animal remains while the identification process of the other bones continues. In excavations carried out in the Mutki district of Bitlis province in January 2011, the remains of 17 PKK members who were killed in four armed clashes in 1999 were found.

Bones were also found during excavations at what is known as the “death wells” in Şırnak’s Silopi district in 2009. The existence of the death wells has long been an issue of contention. It is alleged that JİTEM summarily executed a large number of people, doused their bodies with acid and buried them near the state-owned Turkish Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ) facilities in several southeastern cities.