Prosecutor investigates crime scene where policeman shot Uğur Kurt

İsmail Saymaz ISTANBUL

Kurt’s funeral was held May 24 at the same Okmeydanı cemevi. DHA Photo

A crime scene inspection has been conducted more than three months after a civilian was shot by a police officer in Istanbul during a crackdown on protesters.

Uğur Kurt was killed on May 23 while attending a funeral at a cemevi, an Alevi house of worship, when police opened fire on a group of demonstrators staging a protest in the Okmeydanı neighborhood of the city. Kurt was struck by a stray bullet.

Prosecutor Hasan Yılmaz held the Sept. 4 inspection, while the lawyers for the Kurt family, Aslı Kazan Gilmore and Serdar Laçin, were also present at the scene. A number of police officers were also present.

Footage from the date of the incident showed the location of Kurt in the cemevi and the police officer who shot him - identified only as S.K. - from which the elevation difference and the angle between the two men were recorded. Information regarding the location of two armored police vehicles and a demonstrator who threw Molotov cocktails was also collected.

Yılmaz refused to include in the file information on the distance and angle of another police officer who had reportedly warned S.K. not to open fire. “It would not have an impact on the investigation, as there was no footage showing the officers’ spot,” he said. However, the lawyers appealed to the prosecutor and insisted on these measurements, saying the data was important “to categorize the crime.”

The prosecutor only agreed to conduct measurements after the lawyers said they had examined the investigation folder and footage from the scene for several times, which was enough for them to determine the police officer’s location.

The lawyers criticized the high security measures at the scene, saying the inspection should have been conducted in a quiet atmosphere, which had already been underlined by the prosecutors’ office before.
The large number of police officers harmed the inspection, causing tension in the area and drawing a reaction from the locals, they added.

There has still been no statement from the forensic medicine institution regarding footage that they believe has been deleted by police, the lawyers also said.

The moment when Uğur Kurt was shot was captured by security cameras at the Omeydanı Cemevi: