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The Supreme Court of Appeals has closed the file on the disappearance of Cemil Kırbayır, citing the statute of limitations, reports the Mesopotamia News Agency.
The investigation into Cemil Kırbayır’s disappearance was restarted in 2014, but the Supreme Court of Appeals has now closed the file due to the statute of limitations, overturning the decision of the Ardahan High Criminal Court.
Cemil Kırbayır, a left-wing activist, was detained at his home in Ardahan’s Okçu village on 12 September 1980, and allegedly tortured to death in October of that year. The Kırbayır case has remained unsolved for decades.
Berfo Kırbayır, mother of Cemil Kırbayır, searched for her missing son for years and became one of the symbols of Turkey’s “Saturday Mothers” collective, who gather every Saturday demanding information about forced disappearances and political murders that have taken place in Turkey since the military coup in 1980 and the state-of-emergency era of the 1990s.
In 2011, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with Berfo Kırbayır before she died and promised to investigate the case of Cemil Kırbayır. In the report prepared by the Sub-Commission established in the Turkish Grand National Assembly it was revealed that Kırbayır was killed after he was taken into custody. The report also stated that Kırbayır was first tortured and then killed in the Dede Korkut Education Institute in Göle and his body was destroyed.
Despite this report, the Kırbayır file was closed after the Supreme Court’s decision.
