Police denies role in missing footage of attack on Gezi protester

ISTANBUL

The 19-year-old Gezi Park protester, Ali İsmail Korkmaz succumbed to his injuries in hospital on July 10 after being brutally beaten by a group wearing civilian clothes while trying to escape a police tear gas attack on June 2 in Eskişehir. DHA photo

The government and police have denied any involvement in the disappearance of 18 minutes of camera footage showing the beating of a 19-year-old Gezi Park protester who died July 10, as protests were held in Hatay and Ankara over his death.

The Turkish Police Department announced July 12 via Twitter that an investigation is continuing into the death of the young Gezi Park protester Ali İsmail Korkmaz with the examination of video footage showing assailants beating protesters with sticks in the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir.

A portion of the footage was not found because a hotel owner in the area had cut off the power in his building as a precaution during the clashes, the police department said.

The department dismissed media reports claiming that compact discs of the security camera footage had been broken. “All video footage in the area was handed to the prosecutors’ office in compliance with the prosecutor’s order without any investigation.”

According to an expert report investigating the death of Korkmaz, an 18-minute-long video recording belonging to a hotel nearby that had a camera directed at the street where the incident took place “disappeared,” daily Radikal reported on July 12.

“You say secret witness, empty CD, lies! You say the recordings were deleted. Have you not talked to the owner of the hotel? The man says, ‘I made a blackout, I turned off the switch,’” Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesman Hüseyin Çelik said about the missing 18 minutes of a video recording showing the beating of Korkmaz by a group of unidentified men. Çelik blamed the press for misinformation. “You are conducting an extrajudicial execution.”

An expert report previously submitted to the prosecutors’ office after the examination of 40 pieces of video footage revealed that a section of the security camera footage, lasting 18 to 20 minutes, could not be found, according to a report that appeared in daily Radikal.

Korkmaz succumbed to his injuries in hospital July 10 after being brutally beaten by a group wearing civilian clothes as he tried to escape a police tear gas attack June 2 in Eskişehir.

He was laid to rest in his hometown of Hatay July 11 in a massive funeral.

Turkish police intervened against nearly 3,000 people in Hatay protesting the murder of Korkmaz soon after his funeral, Doğan news agency reported. Protesters set up a barricade to resist against a police intervention, but the police used tear gas and water cannons on the group with the support of gendarmerie forces.