Background
Bedrettin Cömert was an associate professor in the Department of Art History at Hacettepe University. Born in 1940 in Vezirköprü, Samsun, he returned to Turkey in 1970 after studying abroad and began working at Hacettepe as an assistant, becoming an associate professor in 1977. The same year he translated E. H. Gombrich's "The Story of Art" into Turkish as "Sanatın Öyküsü" and received the TDK Translation Award. He also chaired the academics' body, the Association of All Faculty Members.
In the late 1970s universities were places of intense political violence. Academics were not spared, and Cömert was one of the lecturers killed in this period.
What happened
On the morning of 11 July 1978, at about 08:30–08:45, Cömert left his home in Gaziosmanpaşa, Ankara, with his wife and got into his car. Gunmen who stepped out of a vehicle that had blocked their way opened fire. Cömert died at the scene and his wife was seriously wounded. The attack became one of the most widely discussed of the political killings that targeted university lecturers at the time.
The murder shook academic circles. His students and colleagues remember not only his scholarship and work on art but also a future that was lost.
Investigation and trial
The attackers were reported to have fled abroad. It has been reported that arrest warrants in absentia were issued for some individuals, but the case never ended in a full trial; not all the gunmen, those who gave the orders and those who planned the attack were tried. For that reason there is no final verdict. Later accounts attribute the killing to ultranationalist militants, but this has no final court judgment behind it.
The translation of "The Story of Art" he completed remained a reference for generations of students of art history in Turkey. The murder became an important reference in academic debates about lecturers' safety and freedom of thought. His colleagues remember him not merely as the victim of an attack but as a scholar whose academic life was cut short.
Where it stands today
Each year on the anniversary of his death, Cömert is commemorated at Hacettepe, in Ankara and at various universities, and his name is kept alive in memorial events and academic circles. The case is remembered in debates about academic freedom and campus safety as one of the examples of impunity from the 1970s.
For his family and colleagues, the most painful aspect is that decades later those responsible have never answered before a court.