Man abducted by Turkish intel exposes torture during 9-month enforced disappearance


Date posted: February 17, 2020

Gökhan Türkmen, who was allegedly abducted by Turkish intelligence officers and kept in a non-official detention center for 271 days, has said he was tortured, subjected to severe threats and sexually harassed and abused during his enforced disappearance, according to the Yeni 1 Mecra news website.

In February 2019 seven suspects in investigations related to the faith-based Gülen movement went missing.

Gokhan Turkmen

Turkey accuses the movement of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt, although it strongly denies any involvement. Since the failed coup, Ankara has carried out a post-coup crackdown targeting followers of the movement.

Six of them — Salim Zeybek, Erkan Irmak, Yasin Ugan, Özgür Kaya, Mustafa Yılmaz, and Türkmen — reappeared in police custody in Ankara after a nearly nine-month absence.

Yusuf Bilge Tunç, a former public servant who was dismissed from his job by a government decree, is still missing.

Türkmen, currently held in pretrial detention at Ankara’s Sincan Prison, told trial judges he was abducted in his hometown of Antalya by people wearing police vests on Feb. 3, 2019.

He was taken to a location four or five hours away by van where months-long torture and ill-treatment started, he added.

Türkmen said while he was in police custody in November he was prevented from retaining his own legal counsel. He announced during a hearing that he had dismissed lawyer Ayşegül Güney assigned by a bar association.

The families of the once-missing men had conducted a social media campaign to find their loved ones during their nine-month absence, but the other five people, excluding Türkmen, who later reappeared in police custody, told their families to halt the campaign.

They were obviously afraid and apparently treated very badly considering their appearance, the families and lawyers from the Ankara Bar Association later told reporters.

The families had consistently complained about the lack of assistance from officials to find their loved ones, as wives unearthed details on their indicating that their husbands had been abducted.

Salim Zeybek’s wife, Fatma Betül Zeybek, was with him when three men in a vehicle forced them to stop their car and abducted her husband.

According to Turkish security officials the missing men had stayed in a safe house out in the in country for months and never felt the urge to make contact with their families.

Lawyer Mehmet Murat Atak, a human rights lawyer from the Ankara Bar Association, told Yeni 1 Mecra that the men must be examined by independent doctors to determine the extent of the torture.

They must not be tried in their psychologically damaged state, Atak added.

Nearly 30 people have reportedly been abducted by Turkish intelligence officers since 2016. Two of them were able to flee the country and told foreign media about the torture that they had endured during their enforced disappearance.

Source: Turkish Minute , February 7, 2020


Related News

Turkish Martyrs Day: Rumi Forum marks heroics of Turk soldiers

Pakistan and Turkey are two time-tested brotherly countries and the history of Turks is of great pride to Pakistanis. These were the remarks of Senate Standing Committee on Defence Production Chairman Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qayyum at an event regarding 101st commemoration of Turkish Martyrs Day and Canakkale Victory.

Replacing Turkey’s purged elite

On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Turkey has recalled, dismissed, and imprisoned the cream of the crop of its military, its NATO envoys. 400 NATO military envoys in Europe and the United States, the most trained and experienced, have been purged.

Vision-impaired journalist, under arrest for 7 months, denied access to Braille books in prison

Visually impaired Turkish journalist Cüneyt Arat, under arrest over alleged ties to the Gulen movement since July, last year, has said in a letter that he was denied access to Braille books as well as audio-described movies.

Turkey’s Erdogan takes cue from Hitler, Stalin and Khomeini

There is something deeply disturbing about the direction in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party are taking Turkey. Writing in this newspaper last week, John Lyons compared the sweeping purges to McCarthyism in the US in the 1950s. That was altogether the wrong analogy.

Saudi scholar finds what he has been looking for in Gulen

The prominent Saudi scholar Salman Al-Ouda said : “From this day on, I will refer people from our world to you. Please let them see all these services because we have serious problems in our world. We have a radical Salafi line and an emerging secular one. But we need a moderate attitude which is, I believe, the Hizmet. Please do not neglect it and tell them about the Hizmet. It is of vital importance for us.”

Turkey’s accused – Tragic stories of the purged

Turkey’s hunt for traitors after the failed July 15 coup has upended communities around the country and strained the rule of law. Arrests initially focused on military and security personnel. In the months since, tens of thousands of others, mainly teachers, have been caught in the crackdown.

Latest News

Erdogan’s Failed Crusade: The World Rejects His War on Hizmet

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

In Case You Missed It

Establishing a Culture of Coexistence and Mutual Understanding Conference convenes in Nigeria

Dangerous and unnecessary tension

EU calls on Turkey to Investigate abduction cases targeting Gülen Movement

Sakarya court orders stay of execution on closure of Fatih Koleji

America Shouldn’t Give up Fethullah Gülen to Turkey

Gülen says talk of raid against Zaman aims to intimidate

Dialogue and distrust: on the predicament of Gulen-inspired organisations in the UK

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News