As six of the seven suspects detained in connection with the death of a teenage female Gabonese student whose body was found in Turkey’s northern province of Karabük were released on Wednesday night, Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) MP Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu called on the authorities to conduct an effective investigation in the Turkish parliament on Thursday.
The body of Jeannah Danys Dinabongho Ibouanga, a 17-year-old Gabonese national who came to Turkey as a student three months ago, was found in the Filyos Stream on 26 March. Sharing the findings of the preliminary autopsy report, the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office stated that no traces of sexual abuse were found and that the teenager’s death was caused by drowning.
According to Gergerlioğlu, the Gabonese Embassy said that the cause of death was announced as a ‘natural death’ without a proper investigation because the victim was black.
“[Dinabongho] allegedly went into the stream at night, but it is inconceivable that a teenage student would go into the river on a cold winter night,” Gergerlioğlu said. “There should be a proper investigation into the death of Dina, who was seen on CCTV footage running barefoot outside and was allegedly sexually harassed by two staff of the Karabük Post Office.”
The Embassy of the Gabonese Republic in Ankara had sent a note to the Turkish Foreign Ministry to follow up on the developments in the death of the teenager, however, a court in Turkey, upon the request of the chief prosecutor’s office, imposed a restriction on the file in order to prevent the lawyer representing the Embassy of the Gabonese Republic from providing information about the investigation.
On Tuesday, police detained journalist Ali Sencer Arslan for violating the confidentiality of the investigation after he reported on the CCTV footage from the night Dinabongho disappeared. The footage shows the teenager running barefoot. Arslan was released after his statement.
It was also revealed that the teenager had told her mother in her voice messages the day before she disappeared that she was mistreated in Karabük and that she might be killed.
