Background
Ferhat Tepe was the Bitlis correspondent of the newspaper Özgür Gündem. Most sources give his age as 19, others as 18. His father İshak Tepe was then DEP’s Bitlis provincial chairman.
What happened
On 28 July 1993 he was abducted by men in plain clothes carrying radios as he left his home in central Bitlis. Soon afterwards a caller to his father’s house, speaking in the name of the Turkish Revenge Brigade, demanded that İshak Tepe resign from the party and bring one billion lira.
The family and the newspaper approached every relevant institution, and officials said Tepe had not been taken into custody. His body was found on the shore of Lake Hazar in Sivrice, Elazığ. Sources give the date as 4 or 8 August 1993. Unidentified, he was buried in an unclaimed-persons cemetery in Elazığ; his family later located his grave.
Investigation and legal outcome
Official records stated that Tepe drowned while swimming in the lake. Autopsy findings reported by the family and the press were not consistent with that account.
The case was closed by the statute of limitations roughly 21 years after the event. The European Court of Human Rights found that Turkey had not carried out an effective investigation. İshak Tepe sought justice for his son for years and, after his own death, was buried beside him.