74-year-old jailed in Adıyaman

A 74-year-old Kurdish citizen has been jailed in Adıyaman on terror charges.

A 74-year-old man has been imprisoned on terror charges in the northern Kurdish province Adıyaman. The man is suspected of being a member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the public prosecutor's office announced on Friday evening. The court in Adıyaman subjected three other people who are being investigated in the same case to judicial control. Until a decision is made to the contrary, the persons concerned must now regularly appear before the authorities and are not allowed to leave their place of residence. Mehmet Ok was transferred to the Type T prison in Urfa later that evening.

The jailed 74-year-old man is Mehmet Ok. He is the elder brother of Sabri Ok, a member of the executive council of the Kurdistan Communities Union(KCK). The arrest was made earlier this week by the provincial command of the Adıyaman Gendarmerie (military police). During the search of his house, various items "associated with the terrorist organisation" were seized. For example, a seized cloth in green, red and yellow colours is considered proof of the alleged PKK membership, as is a magazine from 2008 and photos showing Ok with his daughter Arzu, who joined the guerrillas years ago.

The operation against Ok and the three other people involved, who are his relatives, two of them live on the Turkish Aegean coast in Izmir and in Çorum in the Anatolian Black Sea region respectively, is based on the statements of an anonymous witness. The anonymous witness stated that the accused were in contact with Sabri and Arzu Ok and were responsible for "material procurement" for the PKK. Ok denies the allegations and his lawyers doubt that the alleged witness even exists. It is suspected that he is a fictitious character from the Turkish police's leniency pool for political trials.