Colonel’s grave was opened before: wife

ISTANBUL-Doğan News Agency

Col. Rıdvan Özden’s grave was opened yesterday as part of the investigation into the unresolved murders of the 90s.

As officials began reopening the grave of Col. Rıdvan Özden, who was allegedly killed by members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 1995, his wife raised a claim the former gendarmerie commander’s grave had previously been opened.

“I trust my instincts. I think this grave has [already] been opened,” Tomris Özden said as officials began digging up Col. Özden’s grave in Edirnekapı Martyr’s Cemetery in Istanbul’s Eyüp district.

Official reports had explained Rıdvan Özden was killed along with two of his guards by PKK militants during a firefight on Aug. 14, 1995, in Mardin’s Savur district.

Suspicious Death
“This lawsuit has been opened for a clean Turkey and a clean society. This lawsuit has been opened so as to uncover a dark structure within the state that was illegally construed and which tyrannized its own nation, and to call them to account,” read a written bulletin distributed by lawyer Bülent Demir to members of the press.

The Chief Prosecutor’s Office in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır issued a written directive to the specially authorized Istanbul Deputy Chief Prosecutor’s Office for the grave of Rıdvan Özden, a former gendarmerie regiment commander in Mardin, to be reopened as part of the investigation into the unresolved murders of the 1990s.