Background
Süleyman Cihan was born in 1947 in Ovacık, Tunceli. He is described as the second general secretary of the TKP/ML (Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist) and was also a student at the Galatasaray Engineering School. After the 12 September 1980 coup he was among those being sought.
Human rights groups often cite his death as an example in debates about detention and torture after the 1980 coup.
What happened
According to accounts, Cihan was detained on 29 July 1981 when plainclothes police stopped the bus he was taking from Edirne to Istanbul. He was taken first to the 2nd Branch of the Istanbul police at Sansaryan Han and the next day to the Political Branch at Gayrettepe.
The official account says that on 30 July 1981, during a visit to a building in Kadıköy suspected of being a safe house, he took his own life by jumping from an empty sixth-floor flat. Early statements had also claimed he died in a clash. His body was buried as "identity unknown" in a paupers' cemetery.
Investigation and legal process
When his family asked police and prosecutors, they were told he had not been detained. A later examination and a 2012 forensic medicine report found that the findings on the body conflicted with the official account, suggesting he may have died before the fall and had been subjected to torture. The family relied on these findings to file a new criminal complaint.
According to Bianet, the file was closed on statute-of-limitations grounds even though the prosecutor's office accepted that he had been killed under torture. The date of death is also disputed: official records say 30 July 1981, while some sources give September 1981.
Where it stands today
No one has been convicted in connection with Cihan's death. The Saturday Mothers/People have raised the file again at their vigils in Galatasaray Square. The case is cited as an example in discussions of statutes of limitation for deaths in custody and of the demand to establish the truth.
The Saturday Mothers/People emerged from a silent sit-in that families of the forcibly disappeared began in Istanbul's Galatasaray Square on 27 May 1995. After pausing in 1999 the vigil resumed in 2009 and is held weekly, each time turning attention to one file. Families argue that enforced disappearance is a continuing violation and should therefore not be closed on grounds of limitation.
His family describes the burial of his body without a name in a paupers' cemetery as one of the most painful aspects of the case. His brother Ahmet Cihan gave a statement to prosecutors years later in an attempt to reopen the process. The Saturday Mothers/People bringing the file to their vigils has helped it reach a wider public.
This page summarises Süleyman Cihan's death in custody by presenting the official account and the accounts of his family and rights groups separately. Because there is no final conviction, the torture allegations are conveyed only as far as forensic findings and prosecutorial steps support them, not as a court ruling. The aim is to ensure the event is not forgotten.