US embassy cable - 04ANKARA6820

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 006820 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/08/2025 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, PREL, TU 
SUBJECT: BOY'S KILLING IN KIZILTEPE ATTRACTS NATIONAL 
ATTENTION 
 
 
Classified by DCM Robert S. Deutsch, E.O. 12958, for reasons 
1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
This cable is from AmConsul Adana. 
 
1.  (SBU) Summary:  In an incident that local security 
officials initially described as a clash between police and 
terrorists, and under circumstances still being investigated, 
Turkish security officials shot to death 12-year-old Ugur 
Kaymaz and his father, Ahmet,were killed by gunfire on 
November 21 in Kiziltepe, Mardin province.  Coming just weeks 
before the European Union's decision about opening accession 
talks with Turkey, the incident has drawn national media 
attention, with calls for an investigation into the 
circumstances surrounding the boy's death.  Whether or not 
Ahmet Kaymaz had connections with the PKK, and exactly what 
happened the afternoon of November 21 are not yet clear, but 
a Kiziltepe prosecutor -- who, for the moment, enjoys the 
confidence of the Kaymaz family's lawyer -- is leading the 
official investigation, while the Human Rights Association 
has already filed its report, calling the deaths 
"extra-judicial killings."  Four security officials in Mardin 
have been suspended pending results of the prosecutor's 
investigation.  The level of official and national media 
attention the case has received is striking compared to the 
past, when such a case would have been largely ignored.  Also 
striking is the speed with which an investigation was opened 
and officials were suspended.  The case raises troubling 
questions about how deeply the security services have 
absorbed reform.  End summary. 
 
Clash?  Deliberate Killing? Something In Between? 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
2.  (U) In an incident that local security officials 
initially described as a clash between police and terrorists, 
and under circumstances still being investigated, Turkish 
security officials shot to death 12-year-old Ugur Kaymaz and 
his father Ahmetwere killed by gunfire on November 21 in 
Kiziltepe, Mardin province.  According to the HRA, Ahmet 
Kaymaz,s home had been under surveillence since November 20, 
after officials allegedly received a tip that terrorists may 
have been using the home and planning "an illegal activity." 
Exactly what happened is not yet clear, but immediately after 
the shooting, officials stated that police killed "two 
terrorists"had been killed by police as they planned to 
attack a government installation;  those statements were 
later amended to indicated that "two terrorists" had been 
killed after not obeying a halt order.  As reports emerged 
that one of the dead was a boy of 12, the "two terrorists" 
expression was dropped.  The Human Rights Association (HRA) 
was quick to dispatch a team and release a detailed report 
alleging that an extra-judicial killing had occurred, but an 
official accounting of what happened is now in the hands of a 
Kiziltepe prosecutor investigating the case. 
 
3.  (U) Human rights groups insist that Ahmet -- a trucker -- 
and his son Ugur were simply outside of their home loading a 
truck for Ahmet's upcoming trip to Iskenderun.  They say that 
the two were killed from close range by bullets from a 
nine-millimeter pistol, and that Ugur was wearing slippers 
and helping his father when reportedly up to 13 bullets 
struck him.  Coming just weeks before the European Union's 
decision about opening accession talks with Turkey, the 
incident has drawn national media attention, with calls for a 
thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the 
boy's death.  In addition to the investigation being carried 
out by one of Kiziltepe's prosecutors, members of 
Parliament's Human Rights Commission, as well as a separate 
delegation of opposition Republican Peoples, Party 
(CHP)representatives parliamentarians, traveled to Kiziltepe 
to look into the matter.  (Note:  The Parliamentary 
delegation has reportedly since opined that no clashes had 
occurred.  End note).  Even Prime Minister Erdogan weighed 
in, stating that a 12-year-old boy could not be a terrorist. 
 
HRA Lawyer:  Prosecutor Trying Her Best 
--------------------------------------- 
 
4.  (C) In a December 2-3 visit to Kiziltepe, poloff met with 
local officials, as well as with Huseyin Cihangir, Kaymaz 
family attorney and Mardin,s HRA representative.  Cihangir 
said the Kaymaz family called him just one hour after the 
incident occurred.  Cihangir also noted that he had seen 
Kaymaz two days before the incident.  As Kaymaz prepared for 
his upcoming trip, said Cihangir, he came to the HRA office 
to hand over a Power of Attorney for the claim he had 
recently submitted to the Compensation Committee.  Poloff 
queried Cihangir as to whether Kaymaz had ever been in need 
of HRA legal counsel previously.  Cihangir replied that in 
1997, when Cihangir had been an internstagaire in Diyarbakir, 
Kaymaz had been detained for two or three months, accused of 
harboring terrorists.  Cihangir claimed that Kaymaz was 
ultimately acquitted of those charges.  (Note:  We are not 
able to confirm that independently.  End note.) 
 
5.  (C)  Cihangir told poloff that the Kiziltepe prosecutor 
in charge of this investigation, Ozlem Pinar Kaktanir Akkoc, 
is an "idealist who is working with great sacrifice."  He 
stated that for the first time in his experience, he was 
generally very pleased with a prosecutor's level of 
cooperation with him.  The night of the incident, the 
prosecutor invited Cihangir to accompany her to the police 
station while the evidence was being transferred from the 
police station to the court building.  Despite the upbeat 
assessmentof one member 
of the Public Prosecutor's office, Cihangir said that he and 
his partner applied for the case file three days previously, 
but that access had been refused on the grounds that the file 
is confidential.  Usually, he said, his team gets almost 
immediate access to files of the cases on which they are 
working.  He argued that even if there were confidential 
information in the file, such as the names of the officers 
involved in the operation, it could be blacked out and the 
bulk of the information released. 
 
6.  (C) He did not know how many officers had been involved 
in the incident, but he wanted to see all of them held 
accountable.  He claimed there were eyewitnesses in the case 
who could say what had happend there, but that they may not 
be willing to come forward publicly withoutif adequate 
witness protectionis not provided.  Cihangir insists that 
this was a deliberate killing.  The weapon of choice during 
operations, he said, is an assault long-barrelled rifle, 
whereas the bullets which killed the Ahmet and Ugur Kaymaz 
were from a nine-millimeter pistol, he claimed.  In addition, 
he claimedsaid both we killed from extremely close range. 
Moreover, if there had been clashes or an exchange of 
gunfire, there would have been more bullets marks in the 
area, he said.  Finally, he claims police brought along arms 
confiscated in previous operations and placed them in Ugur,s 
hands as he lay dead to make it look like the boy had been 
firing upon police.  Kaymaz's brother asked Cihangir, "What 
if I had been the one helping my brother load the truck?  If 
the two of us had been killed in similar circumstances, this 
would have been a closed case of two terrorists killed." 
 
Four Security Officials Suspended 
--------------------------------- 
 
7.  (C) Cihangir said that the Ministry of Interior had 
reportedly dispatched two inspectors to Kiziltepe two days 
after the incident to conduct an administrative 
investigation.  As a result of that investigation, said 
Cihangir, four Mardin Security Directorate special team 
members, including a Deputy Security Director, were suspended 
from their posts on December 1 pending results of the 
prosecutor's investigation into the incident.  Cihangir is 
pushing for charges of "deliberate killing" in the case, 
which would carry a heavier sentence than, for example, a 
charge of "exceeding legal self-defense.8  He argues that 
after the incident, officials kept talking about clashes 
having occurred because firing during an operation brings a 
lower sentence.  When the prosecutor has finished her 
investigation, she will send her conclusions to the Chief 
Public Prosecutor in Mardin, and the Mardin Heavy Crimes 
felony court will have jurisdiction, said Cihangir.  If there 
are no indictments in the case -- for example, due to lack of 
evidence ) he said his team would reject such a decision and 
appeal to a higher felony court and eventually to the 
European Court of Human Rights, if necessary. 
 
Sub-Governor Blames those who got family involved with the PKK 
--------------------------------------------- ----------------- 
 
8.  (C) Kiziltepe Sub-Governor Engin Durmaz told poloff 
matter of factly that "Little Ugur is gone, and we can't 
bring him back."  He seemed proud of the fact that Kiziltepe 
-- with a population that, due to migration from rural areas, 
had grown over the years as if it were a "city on steroids" 
-- had remained stable despite the level of passion felt by 
citizens about this event.  Demonstrators had been on the 
streets in the thousands just after the incident but things 
were calm now, he said.  He had taken a humanitarian 
approach, he said, allowing citizens to approach his office 
and, upon hearing that some protestors were on the way to his 
house, asking his wife to prepare tea so they could invite 
them in.   He seemed to believe, though, that human rights 
groups were taking advantage of the incident, and he said 
that some people just didn't know how to exercise some of 
their newly gained freedom.  He had tried to reach out to the 
community, he said, but said he could not find anyone with 
whom to have a dialogue.  Durmaz expressed sadness that this 
happened to Ugur, but implied that Ahmet Kaymaz had indeed 
been involved with the PKK in some way and that 
responsibility for the boy's death lay with those who got 
Kaymez involved with "the organization."  The Sub-Governor 
reminded us that, as President Bush said after 9/11, "You're 
either with us or against us" and that there were real 
terrorist attacks in the region against which citizens had to 
be protected.  "We have nothing to hide," said Durmaz as he 
welcomed all the inquiries and visits from outside 
delegations. 
 
Mehmet Ali Birand On the Line... 
-------------------------------- 
 
9.  (C) Kiziltepe's pro-Kurdish DEHAP party Mayor Cihan 
Sincar met with us between visiting the Kaymaz family and 
participating via telephone on a national television show 
hosted by Mehmet Ali Birand during which the incident would 
be discussed.  Though an investigation has been launched in 
the case, the Mayor claimed that to date no witnesses on from 
the scene, including the family, had been called in to make a 
statement yet.  She was unsatisfied with the pace of the 
investigation, and was convinced that this incident was the 
result of a deliberate killing by elements within the 
security forces that were against Turkey's accession to the 
EU.  She was unimpressed that Mardin's Deputy Security 
Director had been suspended, claiming that he certainly could 
not have done anything without his boss' permission.  She 
said that people really want to see someone detained or 
brought before the court for this boy's death.  It seemed 
that despite the sadness associated with the death of someone 
so young, tThe Mayor appearedwas energized by the level of 
attention the case was receiving.  Regarding the proximity to 
the EU decision, she said, "Let the reforms begin in 
Kiziltepe." 
 
10.  (C) In a December 2 meeting with poloff, Kiziltepe Chief 
Public Prosecutor Onder Kemal Segucu acknowledged that 
"public opinion is getting impatient" about the 
investigation.  Every detail about the official investigation 
is currently confidential, said Segucu.  In fact, he said, 
his office might later take a look at press reporting about 
the case to see if any newspapers had given away classified 
information that should not have been published.  When poloff 
queried as to how the law worked in such instances, he backed 
off the topic, saying they might not look into the press 
reporting on the case.  He was cordial and open to meeting 
with us, but clearly a bit nervous and declined to accompany 
us to the door when we left, stating that one of his 
colleagues had been criticized for appearing in a newspaper 
greeting a visiting delegation looking into the case. 
 
11. (C) Comment:  It is encouraging that the prosecutor 
investigating this case has impressed such a hard-to-please 
group as the HRA.  As the investigation heads into its third 
week, however, with no one yet charged, the Kiziltepe 
community, currently encouraged by the high-level attention 
to the case, may become skeptical.  An investigation that 
comes up short of indicting someone on criminal charges will 
not satisfy the local public.  Ugur has become a symbol for 
"everyboy" in the heavily-Kurdish Southeast:  the reaction 
from the street is that "that could be my son."  If the media 
is any indication, the case has resonated outside the 
Southeast too. 
 
12.  (C) The level of official and national media attention 
this case has received is striking ) and positive.  In the 
past, such a case would have been largely ignored, except by 
regional human rights and legal groups.  Also striking is the 
speed with which the government opened an investigation and 
suspended security officials pending the outcome.  We will 
need to see how thoroughly and fairly the authorities carry 
out their investigation.  The killing itself raises troubling 
questions about how deeply the security services have 
absorbed reform, not only in the Southeast, but throughout 
Turkey.  End Comment. 
EDELMAN