A man arrested in place of his identical twin brother in Turkey’s Kurdish-populated southeastern province of Diyarbakır has become a hostage of Turkey’s failing judicial system, Mezopotamya News reported.
Hasan Kocakaya, a cancer patient, was arrested and put in prison in place of his brother Hüseyin on 31 October.
Although fingerprints taken at police headquarters revealed that they had the wrong man, Hasan Kocakaya was still charged with being a member of a terrorist organisation and sent to prison.
His lawyers and family had assumed that the mix-up would be resolved in court, but Hasan Kocakaya remained in prison, and as he is registered there in his brother’s name, he has also been unable to access his medication.
“According to the family, they were told to bring Hüseyin in if they wanted to get Hasan back,” his lawyer told Mezopotamya.
To complicate matters still further, the lawyer is not able to obtain power of attorney documents from his client because of him being down as his brother at the prison.
