Background
Ümit Kaftancıoğlu, born Garip Tatar in Ardahan in 1935, was a writer and radio producer. He won the TRT Grand Prize in 1970 for his short story "Dönemeç" and worked as a producer at TRT from 1974. At Istanbul Radio he led the team that made the "Village Room" (Köy Odası) programmes, which focused on rural life.
The spring of 1980 fell in the period before the 12 September coup, when clashes between the political right and left shaped daily life in Turkey. Writers, teachers, journalists and civil servants were often targeted because of their perceived political views.
What happened
On the morning of 11 April 1980, Kaftancıoğlu left his home in Mecidiyeköy and was about to get into his car, after taking his daughter to school, when two armed young men opened fire. He was taken to hospital and died there at the age of 45.
The martial-law administration of the time refused permission for a commemoration planned in front of the Istanbul Radio building. The killing drew wide attention in cultural and press circles.
Investigation and trial
On 2 December 1980 a man named Ahmet Mustafa Kıvılcım was arrested in Istanbul in possession of a weapon. According to accounts in Bianet and T24, he said he had carried out the killing on the instructions of an official of a nationalist youth association; some of the other suspects had left the country. A military court sentenced Kıvılcım to a heavy prison term.
Sources differ on what followed. Some reports say the Military Court of Cassation overturned the sentence; the family's account says the court treated him as an accessory and reduced the term to eight years. In either telling, Kıvılcım was released after roughly four years in detention. Those who allegedly ordered the killing were never brought to trial.
Where it stands today
As with many political killings of the pre-1980 period, the case was never fully clarified. His family has spoken for years about the case remaining in the dark. Kaftancıoğlu is still remembered through his writing and his radio work.
At the time of the killing, clashes between right and left claimed many lives every day, and people working in the media and culture sectors were among those targeted. That a producer at the public broadcaster was shot outside his home, in front of his child, heightened a sense of insecurity among cultural circles. His writing and the radio programmes he made are still regarded as a record of rural life in that period. His family and colleagues have organised commemorations over the years to keep his memory alive.
This page summarises Ümit Kaftancıoğlu's life and death using information from court records and the press. Points on which sources differ are noted in the text. The aim is to preserve the memory of a writer and radio worker and to help ensure that politically motivated attacks that went unpunished are not erased from public memory.