Gezi victim Berkin Elvan’s forensic report released nine months after death

ISTANBUL

Elvan lost his life on March 11, with hundreds of thousands of people attending his funeral, turning it into one of the biggest spontaneous mass rallies of Turkey’s recent century.

The forensic report on the 15-year-old teenager Berkin Elvan who died following a long period in a coma he sustained after being hit by a police tear gas canister during the Gezi protests was released on Dec. 23, nine months after his passing away.

The report confirms that Elvan died due to head injuries trigged by a violent impact, but does not say this was caused by a tear gas canister. According to the report, the fatal injury was either caused by the impact of a hard object, after hitting his head on a hard surface or by the possible attack of an aggressor.

It, however, rules out any possibility of an object hitting him by ricochet, indirectly consolidating the argument according to which Elvan was directly targeted by the police.

The report was finalized by Nov. 9, but was only added to the prosecution files on Dec. 23. Elvan lost his life on March 11, with hundreds of thousands of people attending his funeral, turning it into one of the biggest spontaneous mass rallies of Turkey’s recent history.

Elvan was struck by a tear gas canister in the middle of a police crackdown in Istanbul’s restive Okmeydanı neighborhood as he was going to buy bread. The young teenager, who during his convalescence became the symbol of brutal police attacks on protestors, was only 14 at the time of the incident and turned 15 while in the coma.

The officer who fired the fatal canister has yet to be identified, but the trial has made progress after several pieces of footage showing the before and after of the incident emerged, despite the police’s repeated claims of a lack of cameras.