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In response to allegations that an 83-year old Kurdish prisoner was handcuffed during a hospital visit, the administration of Diyarbakır D-Type Prison in southeast Turkey said that prisoners may be handcuffed to prevent them attempting to escape.
The battalion command in charge of the prison did not directly answer the question of whether prisoner Mehmet Emin Özkan had indeed been handcuffed, Artı Gerçek reported on Saturday.
Özkan’s son has accused the authorities of handcuffing his father during a hospital visit, and also of refusing to allow a family member to assist him while at the hospital. According to the son, during the visit, his father fell from his wheelchair, was kept handcuffed to his hospital bed, and was not served any food.
In response to the allegations, the hospital administration said it had no obligation to serve food to outpatients, and declined to provide CCTV recordings of Özkan while at hospital.
Özkan who has numerous medical problems including high blood pressure, osteoporosis, hearing and vision deficiency and memory loss, and has survived five heart attacks, is not fit to remain in prison according to a report prepared by the Turkish Human Rights Foundation.
However, despite such reports and the efforts of Özkan’s lawyers, the country’s Forensic Medicine Institute has declined to decide in favour of the old man’s release.
Özkan has been in prion for 26 years, on charges of taking part in the murder of Brigadier General Bahtiyar Aydın in Diyarbakır’s Lice district in 1993.
An indictment, which was prepared 20 years after the event accusing Gendarmerie Regiment Commander retired Colonel Eşref Hatipoğlu of the murder, stated that there was no evidence to suggest that Özkan had played any role in the incident.
Özkan’s case was reopened eight years ago, yet not only has the court not ruled for his release, neither has it reached any conclusion in relation to the new evidence.
