An informant named Yüksel B. spoke at a trial where some soldiers from the Turkish army face charges of drug trafficking. The informant stated that a military commander is the head of the drugs cartel in Turkey’s Diyarbakır (Amed) province, Mesopotamia Agency reports.
After eight kilogrammes and 660 grams of various drugs were found in a vehicle driven by specialist sergeant Ferhat Ö. during a road check in the Lice district of Diyarbakır on 26 November 2019, a case was opened against the possible members of a drug cartel, including four Turkish soldiers, who have been jailed.
Yüksel B., speaking as a defendant, revealed the role of the military in the drug trafficking in Diyarbakır. He had spoken before the judge at the last hearing of the ongoing trial in February, and had stated that he was the state informant who leaked the information to the state, which ended up with the car full of drugs being stopped in November 2019.
“Ferhat and Kemal are doing this together. The Lice Gendarmerie Station Commander, defendant Hakan K., is at the head of this drugs cartel. When I had learned that the defendants Kemal and Ferhat would take drugs from Lice and take them to Diyarbakır, with the knowledge of the Police Station Commander Hakan K, I went to Provincial Gendarmerie Commander that evening and reported the plan”, Yüksel B. stated.
The next hearing of the trial is scheduled for May 2021. Lice Gendarmerie Station Commander, Hakan K., and expert sergeants Kemal T. and Osman T., were also jailed after specialist sergeant Ferhat Ö confessed that the time they were caught carrying drugs was not their first time and that the commander Hakan K. was in charge of the drug trafficking. At the first hearing of the case on 5 June 2020, Commander Hakan K. had been released.
