Mehmet Zeki Yılmaz
person- Image
- Sex
- Male
- Civil status
- Married
- Date body found
- Feb 26, 1994
- Occupation
- Craftsman
- Dependants
- 8
- Event description
Per articles published in the Radikal Newspaper on 10th April 2013 and 19th August 2015 and Saadet Yıldız’s book on unsolved murders “Ölü mü Denir Şimdi Onlara?” (Should we consider them dead, then?), Mehmet Zeki Yılmaz was a married father of seven living in Yüksekova, who was detained on 9th February 1994 and released the following day with a warning to be careful about his actions. On 22nd February 1994, while he was at his workplace, he was forced into a cream van by three armed men with masks. On 26th February, his heavily tortured body was discovered on the banks of a nearby creek.
In 2017, the Council of State ruled that the family should be paid compensation due to the failure of the Ministry of Justice to provide effective investigation.
- Geolocation
Latitude: 37.571716
Longitude: 44.282299
- Geolocation
- City
- Hakkari
- District
- Yüksekova
- Date of disappearance
- Feb 22, 1994
- Year of disappearance
- 1994
- Age at the time of disappearance
- Yaş:30Ay:8Gün:21
- Status of the victim
- Discovered dead and returned to the family
- Type of source material
- Book or newspaper article
- Interview with family member (audio and video records)
- Printed or online news
- Decision by the prosecution office
- Decision of non-prosecution due to statute of limitations
- Articles violated according to Constitutional Court
- Article 17/1: Substantive violation of the right to life
- Summary of the legal proceedings
Following the discovery of Mehmet Zeki Yılmaz’s dead body after being forced into a van by armed and masked men, an investigation was initiated in 1994 which did no produce any results. In 2004, the family re-applied for an investigation, which was dropped by the Yüksekova Public Prosecutor’s Office in 2009 on grounds of statute of limitations. Mehmet Zeki Yilmaz’s family had this decision overturned in 2013 by collecting witness and recording witness testimony and submitting autopsy reports. However, the Van Public Prosecutor’s Office, which now had jurisdiction over the case, dismissed the case in 2014. The lawsuit filed by the family at the 1st Administrative Court of Van against the Ministry of Justice for failure of effective and objective investigation was eventually submitted to the Council of State, which ruled that the family should be paid compensation for the failures of the alleged failures.
- Verdict of the Constitutional Court
- Right to compensation