Ali İsmail Korkmaz, battered by civilians weilding bats in their hands in Eskişehir, was disconnected from the breathing machine; however, his life is still in critical condition. The camera images the prosecution office demanded are deleted or damaged.

Ali İsmail Korkmaz, 19, attacked by civilians weilding bats in their hands in Eskişehir, started to breath himself; however, his life is still in danger. There isn’t any record in two of the three cameras filming the area where Korkmaz was battered, and there is ‘damage’ in the unique records of the third camera.

The family sued the people battering Korkmaz and the hospital sending him to the police station to give a statement instead of treating him, and the case still continues.

Gürkan Kormaz, the elder brother of Ali İsmail Korkmaz, was interviewed by Bianet and he said, ‘We suspect that the evidence has been tampered with.’

The reaction of the hospital: ‘Give a statement, and then come here.’

Ali İsmail Korkmaz is a freshman at Eskişehir Anadolu University, in the Department of English Language Teaching. Korkmaz took part in the protests in Eskişehir to support Gezi Park on 3 June. When he ran away after the teas gas bomb attacks of the police, he was attacked by civilians with bats in their hands.

Gürkan Korkmaz told us what had happened that day, and he said they sued Yunus Emre State Hospital since they sent his brother to the police station to give a statement instead of treating him immediately:

‘On the night of 3 June, he went to Mavi Hospital, a unit of Anadolu University, and then because there wasn’t an x-ray and tomography machine there, he was sent to Yunus Emre Hospital with the diagnosis of head trauma and a fractured shoulder. They told Ali İsmail, ‘Give a statement, and then we can start the diagnosis,’ and sent him away.

The elder brother Korkmaz said that Ali İsmail was faced with the same answer when he wanted to be examined the next morning:

‘He went home and slept due to tiredness. When he woke up in the evening, he realized that he could not move his tongue. When he went to the hospital again, they said, ‘Give a statement, and then come here.’

‘He went to the police station all by himself and gave a statement there. In his statement, he said that he had been battered by some civilians. After giving the statement, he went to Eskişehir State Hospital, and then he was sent to Osmangazi Medicine Faculty Hospital with the diagnosis of cerebral bleeding.

Ali İsmail was placed under observation 20 hours after being battered, and the next day he had an operation since the bleeding had increased. Since that day, he has been unconscious. His elder brother stated that he had started to breathe himself three days ago, but the doctors said that he was still in a critical condition.

There aren’t any camera images or they are damaged

The investigation to find the people who battered Ali İsmail continues. Gürkan Korkmaz said it has been claimed that among those people who battered his brother, there were some civil police officers; however, he also stated that there was not clear information about the issue. He also added that the camera records demanded by the prosecution office were empty and damaged, and this created a suspicion of ‘evidence tampering’:

‘There are no images in two of the three cameras filming the event, they must have been deleted. The third camera belongs to a hotel, and the hotel manager stated that they had watched the images with the police, and the police had taken the records. However, when the records were sent to the prosecution office, they didn’t work.’

‘The legal expert stated that there was an irreversible damage on the images, the damage had been caused with the screws in the hard disk, and it was not possible to determine whether this damage happened after or before giving the records to the police office. We are in a serious suspicion of evidence tampering.’

About the attack his brother experienced, Gürkan Korkmaz said:

‘This has nothing to do with duty, or humanity, or religion or anything else. This is completely inhumane. We condemn this. God knows what we, especially my mother, have been experiencing for a month.

The civilians with bats in their hands in Eskişehir

Beside Ali İsmail Korkmaz, some other people were attacked by some civilians with bats in their hands in Eskişehir. Tevfik Caner Ertay, the member of Kolektif Executive Board, was among the people attacked like Korkmaz on that night.

Ertay was interviewed by Bianet, and he stated that after the attack of riot squad officers, he was left in a parking lot, and he was tortured there by civil police officers. The investigation of the prosecution office about the issue still continues.

Ertay stated that during the protests in Eskişehir, some civilians with bats in their hands attacked people, chased after people in side streets and tried to beat them. Ertay said he was aware of the fact that he was attacked by civil police officers, and he thought that among the attackers there were some other people who were not police officers. (BK)

Beyza Kural
3 July 2013
Source: bianet.org

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