Ruling AKP officials express grief over beating of Gezi protester

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

New video footage showing the beating of a man, allegedly the killed Gezi Park protester Ali İsmail Korkmaz, was revealed on Aug. 22.

Ruling Justice and Democracy Party (AKP) officials expressed outrage via Twitter on Aug. 22 over the beating of a Gezi Park protester to death, after new video footage of the incident came to light.

AKP İzmir deputy and former Culture Minister Ertuğrul Günay wrote on his Twitter account that “nobody should talk about justice and victims in other countries, before those who killed Ali İsmail Korkmaz get the penalty they deserve.”

University student Ali İsmail Korkmaz, 19, died of a brain hemorrhage on July 10 after spending 38 days in a coma in the northwestern town of Eskisehir, where he was beaten during a June demonstration. Four people, including a police officer, have been arrested so far in connection to the footage.

‘’Being a nation is unity in good and bad days, in happiness and grief. We feel grief for Ali İsmail, his mother’s pain is ours,” said Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Şahin.

Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek also voiced his reaction to the incident after the new footage was revealed. “Nothing can be a reason for murder. Hair-raising images ... I condemn those who intended to kill a mother’s boy A. İsmail Korkmaz,” Şimşek wrote via his Twitter account.

EU Minister Egemen Bağış also joined the condemnation on Twitter on Aug. 22. “I condemn the wild creatures who attacked 19-year-old Ali İsmail Korkmaz. It is impossible to understand or explain such cruel images,” he wrote.

AKP’s deputy chair in charge of external affairs, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said the footage was shameful for humanity via his Twitter account.

New video footage showing the beating of a man, allegedly the killed Gezi Park protester Korkmaz, was revealed on Aug. 22. The footage shows several men trapping another man at the entrance of a building and beating him.

A civilian suspect in the investigation into the murder of Korkmaz in Eskişehir has confessed that a riot police officer told civilians, including himself, to catch protesters so they could “beat them with sticks.”
Arrested suspect police officer M.S. shouted at them to “catch protesters,” the fourth civilian suspect in the investigation, E.H., said in his testimony taken by Eskişehir’s Sixth Criminal Court of Peace on Aug. 15, daily Radikal reported.

Another piece of footage showing assailants in civilian clothes beating protesters with sticks had emerged on July 12 as part of an investigation into the death of Korkmaz.

The footage, showing an important part of the incident, had earlier not been found and was reported as erased.

However, eight people, including four public employees, were detained on Aug. 7 after security camera footage showing a group of people beating Korkmaz emerged.

Four of the suspects were later released.

Ministry refutes claims

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry issued a statement on Aug. 23 refuting claims that evidence in the Korkmaz death case has been obfuscated.

“Claims that evidence has been obfuscated is not true, and all camera footage in and around the crime scene have been collected to enlighten this sad incident. All efforts are sensitively conducted by the police and gendarmerie with the instructions of the judicial authorities in order to identify those involved in the incident,” said the ministry’s statement.