DIYARBAKIR, — Vedat Aydin was found dead on a road near Malatya on July 7, 1991. Aydin’s murder is believed to have been committed by an illegal organization inside the gendarmerie known as JITEM, which exploited the vast powers granted it as part of counterterrorism efforts to terrorize locals and control and participate in illegal commercial activity in the region.
JITEM (Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counterterrorism) is a wing of the Turkish Police-Military (Gendarmerie) active in the Turkey-PKK conflict. Officially it does not exist, however this claim is widely rejected outside official circles.
This week Ankara Public Prosecutor Hakan Yüksel has found that JITEM, whose existence has been denied so far by the General Staff and other state institutions, was secretly established by the Gendarmerie General Command to fight against “terrorism”. JITEM is believed to have been responsible for thousands of unsolved murders in eastern and south-eastern Turkey in the 1990s.
When Aydin’s body was discovered, his head was smashed, and there were eight bullets in his body. He was immediately buried by the Maden Municipality, and it was later discovered that it was Aydin’s body. After examinations were conducted, Aydin was re-buried on July 10, 1991. Unidentified people opened fire on the crowd attending Aydin’s funeral, leaving three people dead and injuring many others.
Şukran Aydin, the wife of the former HEP executive, marched together with thousands of people who paid respect to the ever loved leader. Speeches were made by BDP Diyarbakir chair M. Ali Aydin as well as Vedat Aydin’s wife. “My children – said Şukran Aydin – have been growing up for thirty years without their father. They burned our houses, our villages; thousands of our children have been forced to grow without their fathers or mothers. We said and we repeat that one day we will hold to account those responsible of these crimes”.