People's Democracy Party (HADEP) Silopi district chair Serdar Tanış and executive Ebubekir Deniz disappeared in 2001. They had been taken to the gendarmerie command and allegedly threatened by regiment commander Levent Ersöz.

Tanış's father Şuayıp Tanış and his brother lawyer Hakim Tanış spoke to eyewitness Hacı Akar, guard of the Kerboran (Dargeçit) Cemetery, who claims that Serdar Tanış had been buried in the cemetery in  Mêrdîn's Dargeçit district.

Father Şuayıp Tanış said that he has taken all kinds of legal actions and applied to all authorities, including the European Court of Human Rights and Turkish Interior Ministry, since his son disappeared 12 years ago, adding that he has however managed to obtain no result from his efforts to find him.

Tanış noted that the grave in Kerboran cemetery hasn't been opened either despite their application to the public prosecutor of Silopi and cemetery guard Hacı Akar's promise to bear testimony confirming that Tanış had been buried there.

Tanış's brother lawyer Hakim Tanış reminded that the ECHR found Turkey guilty on the case of Tanış and Deniz.

Eyewitness Hacı Akar told the followings as to what happened on the day of the incident 12 years ago; "I was working as the guard of the Dargeçit Cemetery when authorities called me to the municipality and told me that there was a body to be buried in the cemetery. Then we went to the graveyard which had been surrounded by special operation police teams from Dargeçit police headquarters and soldiers from the district gendarmerie command. There was a body covered in a blanket and lying in the trailer of a tractor and nobody was allowed into the cemetery. I suggested that we should perform religious service before the burial but they didn't allow me to do it, saying that 'no one should know that he is being buried here'. Then I dug a grave with their help. When I flashed my hand lamp at the body, I saw that it was Serdar Tanış who had been reported missing on TV. I later met his family and told them that Tanış had been buried there. I also bore testimony to the public prosecutor of Dargeçit three times but the grave has not been opened yet".

Levent Ersöz, the regiment commander of the time, who is accused of being responsible for Tanış and Deniz's death, has never been questioned on the incident for the last 12 years despite his ongoing imprisonment.