No remedy for torture victim kidnapped by Turkish intelligence, held captive at a black site

Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm

A Turkish government employee suspected of having connections to an opposition group was abducted by Turkey’s infamous intelligence agency (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MIT), and held at a torture facility for 52 days without any consequences for the perpetrators and no recourse for the victim.

Yunus Akyol, a 41-year-old former chief auditor at the Court of Accounts — the institution responsible for auditing government expenditures — was abducted by MIT agents in the evening hours of July 21, 2016. The incident occurred as he stopped to park his car at a market in Ankara.

An unmarked vehicle abruptly cut off his car, and three or four men emerged from the vehicle, one of whom brandished a gun pointed at his face. He was forcibly put in the car, a hood was placed over his head and he was quickly driven away from the scene, according to testimony Akyol gave in court.

When Akyol asked who they were and why they were taking him, the men responded, “We are the state [Biz Devletiz].” He was subsequently confined to a windowless room with walls layered with foam rubber for sound insulation. His captors kept him handcuffed and blindfolded most of the time during the detention.

The abduction of critics and opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist government by state agents, with complete impunity, has become a defining characteristic of the Turkish intelligence service’s tactics in sustaining Turkey’s repressive regime through intimidation campaigns. The unlawful deprivation of liberty at torture sites also serves to coerce false statements from victims, enabling the government to construct spurious legal cases against opposition groups.

On the day of the abduction, Akyol was supposed to meet his father after shopping, but he never arrived at his father’s house. The day after his disappearance his father filed missing person and vehicle reports with the police, expressing deep concern for his son’s safety. However, the authorities failed to take any action to locate him.

The Constitutional Court failed to provide any remedy for Yunus Akyol, a torture victim who was kidnapped by Turkish intelligence agency MIT:

Akyol’s abduction and torture at a black site bear a striking resemblance to the testimonies of other victims previously reported by Nordic Monitor. These accounts consistently implicate MIT, which operates a clandestine facility in Ankara’s natural and historical conservation area, situated at the heart of Turkey’s capital, approximately two kilometers from President Erdogan’s lavish palace.

Akyol endured relentless torture, including beatings, with the aim of coercing him into making false confessions implicating members of the Gülen movement. This group, critical of the Erdogan government on various issues ranging from corruption within the administration to Turkey’s support for armed jihadist groups, has been a target of the government’s crackdown for a decade.

The kidnappers informed him that nobody knew his whereabouts and whether he was even alive. As a result of the torture and ill-treatment, he sustained wounds to his back, shoulders and knees, endured crushed fingers and toes and suffered long-term hearing loss due to the punches he received to his ears.

At the end of this harrowing 52-day ordeal on September 10, 2016, he was given his clothes, gagged and had a mask put on his face. His hands and legs were bound, and he was placed in a car. After driving for a while, the car came to a stop, and he was carried to a location where he was instructed to remain quiet and still until someone came to pick him up.

This scenario bears a resemblance to the accounts of other victims who were similarly dropped near police stations by MIT agents after enduring months of torture at black sites. MIT agents coordinate with the police, providing information on where and when they can retrieve the victims, allowing for their formal processing within the system, from detention to formal arrest.

After being dropped off by the MIT agents, Akyol managed to remove his gag and mask, only to discover that he was inside a large pipe. He extricated himself from the pipe, called out for help and attempted to hop since his legs were still bound. Half an hour later, a police unit arrived to pick him up. However, instead of finding safety, he faced continued torture and abuse, even within the confines of the police station, indicating collaboration between the police and MIT on his case.

In his statement he recounted receiving multiple punches to his face, back and chest. At one point, police officers stomped several times on the plastic handcuffs binding his hands behind his back, causing the handcuffs to cut into his wrists. He eventually succumbed to the excruciating pain and fainted.

The medical reports prepared for him between September 11 and October 5, 2016 seem to have been extensively falsified. Under pressure and surveillance by the police, doctors refrained from documenting the signs of torture. Instead, they attributed the wounds to possible allergies. The reports were notably deficient, omitting essential information such as who was present during the victim’s examination.

Turkish laws mandate that suspects must be alone with the doctor during examinations to accurately identify possible signs of abuse and torture while in detention. However, Turkish police frequently flout this rule in practice, particularly in cases involving victims subjected to torture, pressuring doctors not to document such instances. Moreover, doctors are required to report who was present with the suspect during the examination, further highlighting the systemic challenges to upholding legal standards.

After enduring a second torture ordeal in police detention, Akyol was formally arrested on October 5, 2016, during his arraignment at the Ankara 4th Criminal Court of Peace. He was charged with belonging to the Gülen movement. Despite his suffering, he did not mention the torture during the deposition at the prosecutor’s office or in court, as police had threatened to harm his family if he spoke out.

It wasn’t until the first hearing in his trial on December 20, 2017, more than a year later, that Akyol found the courage to speak about the torture. He filed a petition with the court, detailing his abduction and torture and expressing his ability to identify some of the perpetrators. However, despite his plea, the court took no action on the torture allegations.

Akyol filed another complaint with the prosecutor’s office on March 9, 2018. However, the police claimed they were unable to retrieve CCTV camera footage from the store’s parking lot as it was no longer available. Shockingly, the public prosecutor didn’t even take a statement from the victim and quickly decided to close the case, citing a lack of evidence. Akyol challenged this decision, arguing that there was a failure to conduct an effective investigation. Unfortunately, his challenge was rejected by the Ankara 3rd Criminal Court of Peace.

He sought recourse from the Constitutional Court, alleging a violation of his fundamental rights, on December 17, 2018. However, despite his appeal, the top court, which operates under the control of the Erdogan government, ruled against him on September 20, 2023, citing a lack of evidence.

Yunus Akyol, circled in yellow, was one of hundreds of people profiled and targeted by Turkish intelligence agency MIT: 

He was initially convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison on November 19, 2018. However, the conviction was later overturned on appeal. Nevertheless, the lower court subsequently sentenced him to 32 years, four months in jail after merging two separate cases against him. The ruling is currently pending further appeal.

The only evidence against him was a claim made by a man who identified an astonishingly large number of people, including him — 146 to be exact — as members of the Gülen movement in a single statement that surfaced three years after his abduction. Additionally, he was alleged to have volunteered his free time to teach young students science as part of community activities within the movement.

Akyol was one of the rising stars in the Court of Accounts until his abrupt dismissal in 2016, along with hundreds of auditors, as part of a government-launched purge that arbitrarily and summarily ousted over a hundred thousand government employees. Prior to his dismissal, he had written numerous articles on government accounting and auditing methods. Moreover, he frequently provided training to government employees in other institutions and delivered lectures in various provinces on modern bookkeeping and accounting rules.

Starting in 2016, the torture and abduction of government critics and opponents were sanctioned by Hakan Fidan, who was then the chief of MIT and is now the foreign minister, following approval from President Erdogan. Following that approval, multiple victims were taken to black sites maintained by MIT, where they were subjected to torture and abuse.

Despite the mounting evidence, including numerous criminal complaints, victim statements and confessions from senior MIT officials, the Erdogan government has failed to initiate any effective investigations into the allegations of torture. In certain cases, prosecutors seemed to be pursuing investigations into these claims, only to later abandon them, often citing as a pretext the lack of evidence. To date no on-site inspections have been conducted at the black sites in Ankara.