ISIL militant treated in Turkey, governor confirms

DENİZLİ

DHA Photo

The governorate of a province in western Turkey has confirmed that a Turkish citizen allegedly wounded while fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria is being treated in a hospital in the province.

“Juridical procedures have been initiated and are still continuing in our border province, after the man entered the country wounded,” the Denizli Governor’s Office said in a written statement on March 5, referring to the alleged militant identified only by the initials E.Ç., who is being treated at the Pamukkale University Hospital (PAU).

“Like all our citizens, he has the right to benefit from our medical services as he is treated,” the statement added.

The statement came after rumors spread on social media suggesting that E.Ç. had recently been wounded in Kobane, a Syrian Kurdish town across the Turkish border, while fighting for ISIL. According to an unconfirmed reported, he was brought to Denizli after receiving brief treatment in Turkey’s border province of Hatay.

A local official from Turkey’s Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has slammed the authorities for providing treatment to an “ISIL commander.”

Hours after the governorate confirmed the rumors on March 5, HDP Denizli Provincial Co-Chair Orhan Çiçek claimed that two state hospitals in the city had initially refused to treat E.Ç. before PAU admitted him.

“The state and the Justice and Development Party [AKP] always say that they are not aiding and abetting ISIL. But it has repeatedly been proven by NGOs that [the AKP] is supporting ISIL and engages in a joint policy with them,” Çiçek said, according to Doğan News Agency.