Background
The early 1990s were among the most intense periods of fighting between state forces and the PKK in the Southeast. In this setting, on 22 October 1993, Gendarmerie Regional Commander Brigadier General Bahtiyar Aydın was shot dead with a long-range weapon in Lice, Diyarbakır. In the official account responsibility was attributed to the PKK, while the organisation did not claim the killing.
What followed in Lice after Aydın's death is still debated under differing accounts.
Lice is a district of Diyarbakır and bore the heavy impact of the conflict in the region in the 1990s. Many villages and neighbourhoods suffered damage in this period.
What happened
In the clashes and operations in the district on the day Aydın was killed and the days after, 16 people, including civilians, were reported killed and 35 wounded. Sources give differing casualty figures, some mentioning 15. Hundreds of homes and shops were burned or damaged, and many families were forced to leave the district.
Aydın's death also became the subject of separate proceedings: a person accused of the killing spent many years in prison.
Relatives of those who died and residents of the district sought justice for years. Witness accounts appeared in newspapers and documentaries; these are testimonies, not court findings.
Investigation and legal process
The investigation made no headway for years. From 2009, information emerging in the Ergenekon investigations revived the file. In 2013, twenty years after the event and just one day before the limitation period expired, the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office had an indictment accepted. It held two public officials responsible for what followed; according to the indictment, what happened in the district was carried out by soldiers taking part in the operation. These are allegations, and the defendants were not convicted.
The case was transferred to İzmir for security reasons. At one stage the court halted it because one defendant was a senior police-rank official and sent the file to the Justice Ministry. During the trial it emerged that one defendant had died; after the death of the second, the case was dismissed on 2 May 2023. In the end no one was convicted.
Where it stands today
The Lice case ended in impunity after thirty years. Human rights organisations see the outcome as an example of the lack of accountability for events of the 1990s in the Southeast.
Dark Location keeps this page to remember the civilians who lost their lives in Lice and all the grave consequences of the events. Who carried out the killing of General Aydın has not been conclusively established by a court.