Şemdin Sakık

Şemdin sakık (* 1959 in the province of Mus ) is a former commander of the People's Liberation Army of Kurdistan , the military wing of the separatist group Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). His code name is Parmaksız Zeki ("Fingerless Zeki"). He is serving a life sentence in Diyarbakır Detention Center .

Family and origin

Sakık was born in Zengök Village, Mus Province . His father Sabri was married to three women, so he has 18 siblings. He attended high school in the city center of Mus . At first he sympathized with organizations like DDKD or KAWA. He was arrested with a gun during an argument among students and was detained for three months.

It is reported that Şemdin Sakık's father neglected his mother Kevi and her children. That's why he lived with his stepmother Fatma in Muş to go to school there. He made it to the end of high school and then he helped his mother grow tobacco in the village. When he wanted to marry the daughter of his uncle Abdülhalik Sakık, he had asked for a high bride fee (150,000 TL ), jewelry and the construction of a house. Since his father did not want to give him a place to build a house or the bride money, Şemdin Sakık is said to have injured his father with a shot. This had three people on him to kill him. That's why he "moved into the mountains". After the military coup in 1980 , he said he hid south of the city for two years. In 1982 he joined the PKK, went to Syria and received a two-month training course in Lebanon . In March 1983 he returned to Turkey for the PKK and took on tasks in the “Botan” ( Şırnak ) region.

His brother, Sırrı Sakık , is a member of the 23rd term of the Turkish parliament for the province of Mus. His sister Adife Sakık was shot dead while fighting with Turkish units. Abdülsenat (or Abdülselam or Abdulselam) Sakık, as chairman of the pro-Kurdish People's Labor Party (HEP) for Gaziantep Province , was presumably the victim of an attack on November 3, 1992 by the radical Islamic organization Hezbollah . His brother Akif was arrested with him as a PKK activist and convicted. His brother Seyyar Sakık is said to be active within the PKK under the code name Karker.

Working in the PKK

Şemdin Sakık joined the PKK after the September 12 military coup and for many years was considered No. 2 in the organization and the right-hand man of Abdullah Öcalan . In many "provinces" of the PKK he was the provincial officer. During his service as commander of armed units of the PKK, Şemdin Sakık became a legendary figure. In a few years he is said to have escaped 18 army traps and ambushes. Unlike Öcalan, who announced offensives from a safe domicile in Damascus, Sakık was considered a front-line fighter. His harshness on himself also contributed to his dubious fame. After he was hit on the hand in a battle with Turkish armed forces, he is said to have cut off the remains of skin and bones with a knife - because the stub hindered him in the "fight for freedom". After that, Sakık was known as "Zeki (= clever, cunning) fingerless".

Sakık was the commander in charge of the PKK unit that carried out the 1993 massacre of unarmed Turkish soldiers near Bingöl . He fell out with Abdullah Öcalan over the conduct of the war. As a punishment Sakık was sent to the Amanos Mountains , but left the region and returned to Damascus to Öcalan. There he was removed from office. He was arrested by the PKK and later sent to northern Iraq. His written self-criticism was 80 pages. He wrote it in 1997 when he was interrogated by the PKK for many months. He is said to have been handcuffed from Syria to northern Iraq, where he managed to escape to the PDK .

Fixing and key witness

fixing

The PDK "sold" Sakık to Turkey. He and his brother Akif had been told that they would lead to Masud Barzani together , instead they had been transferred to Turkish special forces in northern Iraq. He describes his capture as follows:

“Our car stopped exactly in the middle of the plane. When we asked what was going on and why we had stopped, the Peshmerga driver said the engine was probably sucking air. He got out, opened the hood, and pretended to look at the engine. I also got out to take the opportunity to take a pee break. I took five to ten steps to a wheat field and crouched down. A vehicle approached our jeep from behind and stopped. Five people got out. Two came up to me. The others went to the vehicle. I assumed they had come to help us and thought nothing of it. At that very moment I became aware of a familiar face above me. He held the gun to my head and said: 'Don't worry, we don't want to kill you!' "

- Tuncer Günay: Şemdin Sakık'tan Mektuplar. P. 72

Mahmut Yıldırım, known as "Yeşil" (green, code name), was on duty in the operation in northern Iraq . This was confirmed by the secret service (tr: Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı ) years later.

Role in the "Andıç scandal"

During the police interrogation in April 1998, during which Şemdin Sakık had no contact with the outside world, the daily newspapers Hürriyet and Sabah in particular published alleged details of his testimony. The accusation was raised against the Human Rights Association (IHD) in the person of its chairman Akın Birdal , as well as against the Kurdish party HADEP and other organizations as well as individual journalists and artists, that they were the recipient of orders and salaries of the PKK. The accused included politicians such as Abdülmelik Fırat , Salim Ensarioğlu, Fethullah Erbaş and Leyla Zana , as well as newspapers such as Ülkede Gündem , Evrensel and Demokrasi .

Well-known journalists and publicists such as Mehmet Ali Birand , Mahir Kaynak, Cengiz Çandar , Ahmet Altan , Mehmet Altan , Mehmet Barlas and Doğu Perinçek were accused of receiving financial support from the PKK for their journalistic activities. In front of the prosecutor's office, Şemdin Sakık said that he only mentioned many of these names because they were insisted. Soon after, on May 12, 1998, Akın Birdal was the victim of an assassination attempt, which he barely survived. The allegations turned out to be lies and controlled by the military; In 2009, the then Chief of Staff, Yaşar Büyükanıt , admitted that the operation had been a “mistake”.

Condemnation

Sakık was tried in a State Security Court in Turkey and sentenced to death under Article 125 of the old Turkish Penal Code . The death penalty was later abolished and commuted to aggravated life imprisonment . According to the knowledge of the Turkish military, Sakık had been humiliated by Öcalan in front of comrades. Within the PKK, Sakık is considered a traitor. While in custody, he wrote books that cast PKK leader Öcalan in a bad light. For a time, the Diyarbakır Sakık prison provided a computer with special permission from the Ministry of Justice and had it run its own website.

Witness in the Ergenekon trial

On November 6, 2012, Şemdin Sakık was heard as the secret witness with the code name "Deniz" in the Ergenekon case in the 255th session of the case before the 13th Serious Criminal Chamber in Istanbul. In his testimony, he made extensive statements of a more general nature. Specifically, he said about the murder of General Bahtiyar Aydın that the organization should be blamed for this murder. As the commander of the units near Lice , he could say that the PKK had nothing to do with it. On January 24, 2001, Şemdin Sakık said that he did not know whether Ergenekon was behind the murder of the former police chief of Diyarbakır, Gaffar Okan. However, a Hezbollah leader arrested with him had assured him that they had nothing to do with it.

Books published in custody

• Şemdin Sakık'tan mektuplar [Letters from Şemdin Sakık] Ed. Tuncer Günay, August 2005
• Apo [nickname or short form of Abdullah Öcalan]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ daily newspaper Hürriyet of April 17, 1998 ; Accessed November 8, 2012
2. ↑ Article by Deniz Bilgen Çakır Şemdin Sakık anlatıyor II ( Memento of October 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive ); Accessed November 9, 2012
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Message in Ankara Meydanı from November 7, 2012 ( Memento from April 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ); Accessed November 8, 2012
4. ↑ Kent Haber ( Memento of February 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Annual report 1992 of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (Turkish, page 69)
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Letter to Selim Çürükkaya ; Accessed November 8, 2012
7. ↑ ^{a b} See report in the Spiegel from April 20, 1998 The end of a myth ; Accessed November 8, 2012
8. ↑ Article in NTVMSNBC of April 11, 2012 MİT'ten itiraf: Yeşil 4 kez kullanıldı Yeşil was used four times; Accessed November 8, 2012
9. ↑ Example in Hürriyet of April 26, 1998 İfadedeki isimler (name in the statement); Accessed November 8, 2012
10. ^ Annual report 1998 of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TIHV), Turkish, pages 76-77, Ankara 2000, ISBN 975-7217-25-5
11. ↑ Details can be found in the 1998 annual report of the TIHV on pages 359–367
12. ↑ Mehmet Ali Birand : Nihayet, bir komutan “Andıç hata idi” dedi , Hürriyet, May 9, 2009.
13. ↑ Sabah, November 30, 2007
14. ↑ Internet Haber of November 12, 2007 ; Accessed November 9, 2012
15. ^ Report in Hürriyet of November 6, 2012 ; Accessed November 8, 2012
16. ↑ ^{a b} Report of the Turkish Democratic Forum (DTF) for November 2012 ; Accessed November 9, 2012