Guard says Çeber was beaten in jail

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

refid:10843861 ilişkili resim dosyası

A prison guard on trial in connection with the alleged death by torture of a jailed leftist activist told a court Thursday fellow guards beat the victim, the Anatolia news agency reported.

In the second hearing of the high-profile case, the defendant testified that he saw 29-year-old Engin Çeber, who died in October, being hit in the face and head by fellow guards at the Metris prison in Istanbul, the report said.

The case has provoked a public outcry in Turkey and has been watched closely by rights activists, who say mistreatment and torture is again on the rise in Turkey after a notable decline in the early 2000s.

In the opening hearing Wednesday, the six suspects who risk the heaviest sentences denied responsibility, claiming that Çeber appeared to be sick, refused to stand for roll call, fell to the ground when the guards tried to raise him and then hit his head against a wall.

Beaten for ignoring rules
But a fellow guard, Yılmaz Aydoğdu, told the court Thursday he saw Çeber being beaten Oct. 6 and 7 after refusing to observe roll call rules. Aydoğdu said he tried to stop his colleagues. When asked why he signed an incident report including a statement that there was no mistreatment of Çeber, Aydoğdu said he was told to do so by the prison warden.

Aydoğdu, who is among 60 people on trial in the case, named four guards who he said slapped Çeber in the face and hit him in the head in the ward and then dragged him out, kicking and hitting him, Anatolia reported.

Çeber, 29, was arrested while protesting police brutality at the end of September. Ferhat Gerçek,19, was shot by a police in 2007 while he was selling a leftist journal and lost his ability to walk. Çeber was demonstrating against the Gerçek shooting.

Çeber, a leftist activist, was detained during a demonstration against police violence in Istanbul on Sept. 28. He was held for one night in a police station and then put in the Metris prison pending trial for charges of resisting the police. Çeber died Oct. 10 after being hospitalized for a coma. An official medical report said Çeber sustained "severe blows" that caused a fatal brain hemorrhage.

The incident attracted intense public reaction and Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin has apologized to Çeber's family in what was a rare gesture for a state official in these circumstances and admitted that Çeber had suffered "ill treatment." Currently, 60 suspects including security guards of Metris prison, in which Çeber is alleged to have been tortured, as well as the prison doctor, who is alleged to have signed a health certificate without ever having seen Çeber, are all being tried.