Expert who deleted footage of Gezi victim’s beating faces three years in prison

İsmail Saymaz ISTANBUL

Baton-wielding plainclothes policemen are seen in footage recorded after the beating. DHA Photo

An expert preparing a report prior to an investigation into the killing of Ali İsmail Korkmaz is facing three years in prison for deleting video footage that showed the beating perpetrated by plainclothes police in Eskişehir at the height of last year’s Gezi protests.

Korkmaz died from injuries he sustained during the beating a week after the police assault on him, while the footing that emerged following the incident sparked national outrage.

The investigation into the killing showed that a security camera that recorded the beating was deleted four times, including twice by Serkan Uğurluoğlu, a data processing technician at Osmangazi University who was tasked as an expert with recovering the images contained on a hard disk.

But Uğurluoğlu said in his report to the police that the hard disk was empty and contained no information. A second expert analysis by gendarmerie forensics showed that the hard disk was formatted twice by Uğurluoğlu.

The camera of a bakery where Korkmaz was left after being beaten to death is expected to provide key evidence regarding the course of events and may result in the punishment of the suspects.

The eight murder suspects, include four police officers, have denied administrating the fatal beating during the first three hearings.

In his defense testimony, Uğurluoğlu denied having formatted the hard disk, claiming he was unable to recover the images with recovery programs.

But the prosecutor of the case, Hasan Ali Erkan, alleged that Uğurluoğlu had provided a false report, and demanded the individual be sentenced to up to three years in prison for forgery in a separate case.

The trial into Korkmaz’s murder will resume on Nov. 26 with a new hearing in the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri.

Korkmaz died on July 10 after spending 38 days in a coma.