Per indictment bill prepared by the Mardin Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, Mehmet Erek lived in the Zeytinlik neighborhood of Mardin’s Derek district and made a living as a driver. Ramazan Erek, also from Zeytinlik, ran a grocery store. Ahmet Erek, another habitant of Zeytinlik, worked as an employee at a milk factory. Ramazan and Mehmet were well-known and respected individuals in their district. Mehmet had been approached by the security forces to become an informer, but he had refused the offer.

On the morning of 5th February 1994, Mehmet Erek left home to go to the market but did not return home in the evening. The next day, while they were going to Mazıdağı to search for Mehmet, his relatives Ahmet and Ramazan Erek were stopped at a gendarmerie check point. The other two people in the car were called out by the officers for an identity check. When they came back, Ahmet, Ramazan and Ramazan’s car were not at the location they left. Officers told them that Ahmet and Ramazan had had to leave because of an urgent call. The same day, Ramazan’s car was seen abandoned at a roadside. On 2nd February 1994 the dead bodies of Mehmet, Ahmet and Ramazan Erek were found close to a small village on the road between Derik and Mazıdağı. All were shot dead with a bullet in their heads. Ramazan’s car was found close to the dead bodies. After having completed a crime scene investigation, the Gendarmerie concluded that the villagers had been kidnapped and killed by the PKK.

The case had not been investigated effectively until 2012 when the Derik District Gendarmerie Commander who served between 1992 and 1994, was indicted for several incidents of arbitrary execution and enforced disappearance, including the disappearance of the Erek family. The trial began in Mardin but was eventually transferred to Çorum’s High Penal Court for security reasons. In his defense statement, the commander claimed that the PKK was responsible for the incidents prosecuted in the case, adding that as the District Commander he had always respected human rights and the rule of law. The court in Çorum decided that there was no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt indicating the commander’s responsibility.

The attorneys of the plaintiffs then applied to the Court of Cassation which agreed with the decision of the lower court.