Per Amnesty International’s report on Turkey and the Şemdinlihaber.gen.tr article on the subject from 2 May 2015, İzzet Tuğal was a primary school graduate making his living trading tobacco at his small shop in Diyarbakır, where he lived with his pregnant wife and four children. In 1995, he went to his native village Licok, which had been evacuated by state authorities except for several elderly inhabitants, including his parents. On the second night, five men in guerilla type clothing carrying walkie-talkies and Kalashnikovs raided the village and left with İzzet, claiming they needed him to give a statement in Lice. When his father secretly followed them, he observed that his son was placed in one of four military vehicles waiting in a nearby village.

His wife’s petitions to the Prosecution Office of the State Security Court and the Lice Public prosecutor’s Office were turned down. His dead body, showing signs of torture and gunshot wounds was found a month later in the wilderness. Family’s requests for autopsy and investigation were ignored. The family repeated their request for investigation two years later.