Prosecutor finds 4 dead PKK militants not responsible for murder of police chiefs

• published: 28 Feb 2015
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A prosecutor's indictment over the murder of two police chiefs in the southeastern province of Bingöl has confirmed a police investigation that found that four outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (pkk) militants killed by police from special ops teams have no connection to the murder. Bingöl Deputy Police Chief Atıf Şahin and police officer Hüseyin Hatipoğlu were gunned down by terrorists on Oct. 9, while Bingöl Police Chief Atalay Ülker was severely injured in the assault. Shortly after the attack, Interior Minister Efkan Ala announced that four of the alleged assailants were killed in clashes after the assault. However, the unresolved aspects of the incident became more obvious when the PKK argued that the four individuals who were killed by the police from a special ops unit were not members of the terrorist group, prompting questions about the attack and its perpetrators. Ala had said that the four terrorists who attacked the police forces were killed while trying to escape to Diyarbakır province. One of the terrorists, identified as Erhan Şenyuva, was a civil servant at the Bingöl Provincial Directorate of Education. The four terrorists were reported to have taken part in clashes with the Free Cause Party (Hüda-Par), a pro-Kurdish/radical Islamist party ideologically aligned with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Şenyuva and Ali Kılıçgedik had been arrested and linked to the assault. However, the police investigation of the incident has concluded that the four PKK militants who were killed were not responsible for the assault on the police chiefs and had no concrete connection to the incident. An indictment prepared by Bingöl Chief Public Prosecutor Mehmet Demirağ found that the assault was not staged by the four terrorists who were killed: "An assault on the police team on the Bingöl-Genç highway was staged using a white vehicle with license plate number 12 AR 900. Terrorists Ali Bozan, Emre Ekinci, Ramazan Özmaskan and Ömer Toplan were killed in a clash with the terrorists after the assault. Erhan Şenyuva, the driver of the car, fled the area with injuries. During the search, two Kalashnikov rifles and a large number of cartridges as well as six clips were found in the car." The indictment also noted that no link has been found between the incident and the four terrorists who were killed shortly after the attack on the police chiefs. Moreover, Kılıçgedik and Şenyuva, who are being charged with helping the four other terrorists in the assault, were released by the court pending trial on the grounds that no connection was found between them and the assault. However, the prosecutor demanded 12 years in prison for each, accusing them of being members of the outlawed PKK. The first hearing of the trial of the two men will take place on March 12. After the assassination of the two police officers, claims of negligence appeared in the media, noting that the court rejected the police unit's request for a search of the city following intelligence that a group of terrorists had entered the city to target the police force. The assault on Ülker and his team, who were on their way to investigate violent incidents in the city, came shortly after the Kobani protests. According to reports that appeared in several media outlets, the Bingöl Police Department's counterterrorism unit reportedly asked the penal court of peace in Bingöl for permission to search for terrorists who were thought to have entered the city. The court rejected the request on the grounds that there was no need for such a search. The Bingöl Police Department then reportedly failed to track the terrorists, who entered the city despite warnings in intelligence reports. The penal courts of peace were established in July after the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) approved a law that put penal judges of peace, popularly known as “super judges,” in charge of these courts. The role of these judges has been criticized due to the broad authority they have over investigations and other courts' rulings. After these courts were established, more than 100 police officers were detained in a pre-dawn operation on charges of illegal wiretapping, espionage and plotting against the government.