Torturer man asks for forgiveness

ISTANBUL

A man who served as a soldier at Ankara’s infamous Mamak Prison after the 1980 coup has apologized for torturing his victims and filed a criminal complaint against his superiors for forcing him to treat prisoners poorly.

“I beg those whom I tortured to forgive me now,” daily Habertürk quoted Doğan Eşlik as saying.
Eşlik lodged his complaint on the grounds that more senior military personnel “forced him to torture the prisoners.”

The former soldier said personnel were given special training in how to torture prisoners and added that he had tortured prominent socialist politician Oğuzhan Müftüoğlu and Bülent Forta, the owner of the Ada Music company.

Eşlik said the situation of the soldiers was little different than that of the prisoners inside the prison. “We were also getting training on how to torture the prisoners. When we couldn’t do it, we were getting beaten up by our commanders.”