State cannot investigate on crime it allegedly committed
State cannot investigate on crime it allegedly committed
After a mass grave was discovered in Mutki, a district of Bitlis in the pre-dominantly Kurdish region of south-eastern Turkey, last January, the issue of unsolved murders and disappearances is back on the agenda. Specialists and human rights defenders claim that haphazard excavations carried out with shovels were not acceptable. They demanded an independent international team in order to reveal the truth.
Prof. Þebnem Korur Fincaný, an expert on forensic medicine, the determination of torture and rehabilitation measures. She remarked that the state could not investigate a crime that is being imputed on the state itself. Doubts would still remain even if the investigation would have been carried out in accordance with scientific methods, Fincancý stated.
In a panel discussion organized by the Istanbul Bar Association on Thursday 17 February, Fincancý declared, "The use of shovels is unacceptable in the area expected to be a mass grave. Excavations in the entire area must be done delicately. An investigation without archaeologists and anthropologists that looses evidence is unacceptable".
"The people that were found in the excavations even had their shoes still. In fact, everything they were wearing should have been taken to be secured. You cannot carry out an investigation otherwise. Forensic procedures were neglected during the excavations. A trial should be filed against all public prosecutors, physicians and members of the judiciary who are responsible for this".
Fincancý, who is also the President of the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (TÝHV), criticized that they could not get hold of DNA material after the excavations and stressed the difficulty of determining the DNA from bones that were crushed and broken by the shovels.
Co-operation with relatives of the disappeared
Fincancý mentioned the importance of the government's refusal to sign the United Nations (UN) International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
She explained that they started to take blood and DNA samples from the relatives of disappeared persons in order to be able to identify the bodies.
Prof. Þebnem Korur Fincaný, an expert on forensic medicine, the determination of torture and rehabilitation measures. She remarked that the state could not investigate a crime that is being imputed on the state itself. Doubts would still remain even if the investigation would have been carried out in accordance with scientific methods, Fincancý stated.
In a panel discussion organized by the Istanbul Bar Association on Thursday 17 February, Fincancý declared, "The use of shovels is unacceptable in the area expected to be a mass grave. Excavations in the entire area must be done delicately. An investigation without archaeologists and anthropologists that looses evidence is unacceptable".
"The people that were found in the excavations even had their shoes still. In fact, everything they were wearing should have been taken to be secured. You cannot carry out an investigation otherwise. Forensic procedures were neglected during the excavations. A trial should be filed against all public prosecutors, physicians and members of the judiciary who are responsible for this".
Fincancý, who is also the President of the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (TÝHV), criticized that they could not get hold of DNA material after the excavations and stressed the difficulty of determining the DNA from bones that were crushed and broken by the shovels.
Co-operation with relatives of the disappeared
Fincancý mentioned the importance of the government's refusal to sign the United Nations (UN) International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
She explained that they started to take blood and DNA samples from the relatives of disappeared persons in order to be able to identify the bodies.
