ANKARA - An application has been filed with the Department for the Investigation of Unsolved Crimes under the Ministry of Justice to reopen the Musa Anter case.

 

An application has been filed with the Department for the Investigation of Unsolved Crimes under the Ministry of Justice to reopen the case of Kurdish journalist and writer Musa Anter (Apê Musa), who was murdered by the Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism ( JİTEM) in Amed on September 20, 1992. Musa Anter's daughter, Rahşan Yorozlu, submitted the application through her lawyer, Bişar Abdi Alinak, requesting the reopening of the case, which was dismissed on September 21, 2022, on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired.

 

In the application, the applicants requested that the investigative and judicial steps left incomplete during the original investigation and trial be carried out, that the physical evidence in the case file be re-examined using current forensic science and criminal investigation techniques, and that the full truth of the case be established.

 

The application also called for the identification of those responsible throughout the chain of command, the initiation of the necessary legal proceedings against them, and a full clarification of all aspects of the case.

 

THE CASE

 

Musa Anter was murdered in Amed on September 20, 1992. Former JİTEM member Abdülkadir Aygan later confessed that Anter had been killed by a team of which he himself was a member.

 

No effective investigation was conducted into Musa Anter's murder until 2000. Following an application by the Anter family, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that both the substantive and procedural aspects of the right to life had been violated. After the ECtHR's ruling, the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office with Special Authority reopened the case in 2009, 17 years after the killing, treating former JİTEM member Abdülkadir Aygan's confession as a formal criminal complaint. 

 

Just before the 20 year statute of limitations was due to expire, former JİTEM informant Hamit Yıldırım was arrested in Şirnex on June 29, 2012. In 2013, prosecutors indicted Yıldırım, Mahmut Yıldırım, known by the codename “Yeşil”, former JİTEM member Abdülkadir Aygan, and retired Colonel Savaş Gevrekçi on charges of premeditated murder and inciting the public to armed rebellion. In 2015, the trial was transferred from Amed to Ankara on “security” grounds and merged with the main JİTEM trial.

 

Thirty years after Musa Anter's murder, the case was dismissed at its 37th hearing before the Ankara 6th High Criminal Court on September 21, 2022, after the court ruled that the statute of limitations had expired.