Worker burned alive in Istanbul’s third airport’s construction site

A brawl erupted between Mehmet Aytaç, a 36-year-old from the southeastern province of Diyarbakır, and his co-worker during the day for an unknown reason. 

The fight was broken up by the other employees at the construction site. The unidentified worker, however, subsequently poured gasoline on Aytaç as he was sleeping while everyone else was also asleep. 

He then ignited the gasoline, resulting in Aytaç being burned to death. 

His dead body was sent to the Forensic Medicine Institute for an autopsy before being taken to Diyarbakır, while the gendarmerie has launched an investigation into the incident. 

The worker who killed Aytaç surrendered to the gendarmerie in Istanbul’s Kemerburgaz district and said in his testimony that the fight erupted between Aytaç and him over “a woman.”

It was determined that Aytaç called his brother a while ago and told him that he was not comfortable working at the site, daily Evrensel reported. 

“I’m not comfortable here. They don’t like me being from the southeast and they ostracize me,” he reportedly told his brother, Suphi Aytaç.

Speaking about the incident, Suphi Aytaç stressed that the incident was politically motivated. 

“They burned him using six liters of gasoline. They were isolating my brother just because he was from the southeast,” he told Evrensel, adding that he expected the state to punish the perpetrators in the harshest way possible.  

“This is not humanity,” he added.

Meanwhile, officials from the Transportation Ministry and Istanbul Grand Airport (İGA) commented on the incident, with the former saying that they had no information regarding it. 

While confirming the death resulting from fire, İGA said it was not a “work accident” but a result of a “personal disagreement” between two workers.