A Kurdish man allegedly lynched and pushed out of a helicopter in 2020 by soldiers in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority eastern province of Van (Wan) has been sentenced by a Turkish court to seven years and six months in prison under terrorism charges.
The criminal court accepted an indictment in December 2021 by the Van Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office that accused the man, Osman Şiban, of being a member of an illegal organisation. The verdict came on Tuesday in a final hearing but Şiban’s lawyers will appeal, Mezopotamya Agency reported.
The prosecutor claimed in the indictment that Şiban was engaged in “militia activities” and that he was transferring logistics and living materials to rural areas on the instructions of illegal organisation. Three 40-50 litre cans of diesel found in a hamlet near Şiban’s house were considered criminal evidence.
Furthermore, the prosecutor claimed that UAVs and UCAVs monitors had found “activity in a manner contrary to the ordinary course of life” in the area around Şiban’s house.
On 11 September 2020, Turkish soldiers arrested Şiban, and another Kurdish man, Servet Turgut, in the Çatak (Şax) district of Van. The two men were allegedly beaten, and put on a helicopter to take them to a military post. According to Şiban’s testimony, the soldiers pushed Şiban and Turgut out of the helicopter while the aircraft was still in flight, coming down to land at the military post. Then, at the barracks, the two men were seriously injured, allegedly beaten by groups of soldiers.
Their relatives found Şiban and Turgut two days later in the intensive care unit of Van Regional Education Research Hospital.
Photos surfaced from the hospital of the torture Şiban and Turgut allegedly suffered at the hands of the Turkish soldiers. Turgut died 20 days after being admitted to the intensive care unit and his funeral was held under heavy police presence.
In October 2020, four Mezopotamya and Jin News reporters who covered the incident were detained in house raids and sent to prison. Two months later, another one of Mezopotamya’s journalists was detained as part of the same investigation.
The journalists were accused of “reporting on social events against the state” and were released nearly seven months after their arrest, in a first hearing.
The helicopter incident was raised on the parliamentary agenda by pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) legislators who pointed out that Şiban’s testimony was confirmed by the hospital’s crisis report which recorded a “fall from a height”. In response, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said in November 2020 that Şiban was “militarising with terrorists” and an investigation was ongoing.
A report was also prepared by an independent legislator, Workers’ Party of Turkey (TİP) MP Ahmet Şık, that said the two men were pushed out of the helicopter onto the concrete, and were subjected to mass beatings and lynch torture which led to fatal injuries in one of the men.
“From Şiban’s account, it appears that the incident of being thrown out of the helicopter was only one detail of many hours of torture and mass beatings, and that the incident that killed Turgut and seriously injured Şiban was in fact severe torture and mass beatings,” said Şık.
