Vedat Aydin

The widow of slain Kurdish politician Vedat Aydin accused JiTEM of being responsible for her husband’s murder.
Iükran Aydin, the wife of a murdered Kurdish politician, broke her silence 19 years after the killing of her husband, Vedat Aydin, and told Today’s Zaman that a clandestine unit within the gendarmerie was responsible for the murder.

Vedat Aydin, the Diyarbakir branch chairman of the now-defunct People’s Labor Party (HEP), 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.

Aydin’s murder marks one of the critical turning points of Turkey’s long-standing Kurdish problem as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) used the murder to win support in Turkey’s Southeast and gained prominence in the region thanks to the murder of Aydin, a renowned figure.

Aydin’s wife, iükran Aydin, said Aydin was taken away by armed men with wireless communication devices who identified themselves as the police on July 5, 1991. Thousands of people disappeared in the ‘90s in the Kurdish-dominated Southeast and some eastern cities of the country in a similar manner. She said it was the last time she saw her husband alive. After her husband left the house, Aydin said she contacted the Diyarbakir Police Department to ask about her husband’s situation but was told that he was not at the police station. No state institutions in Diyarbakir were able to find any information on the whereabouts of Aydin until his body was found on the Ergani-Maden road two days after he went missing.

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.

Source: Today’s Zaman, March 2, 2010