New ’death wells’ digs commence in Southeast

This round of excavations in the Silopi district of Şırnak province is not based on a tip-off but linked directly to the investigation into the alleged Ergenekon gang. The excavation is being carried out in places determined by Ergenekon prosecutors in Istanbul. Silopi prosecutor Attila Özturk and lawyers from the Şırnak Bar Association were also at the excavation site. Şırnak Bar Association President Nuşirvan Elçi said: "The excavation is being carried out in an area the size of a football pitch. Previously it was a sports field for soldiers and a helicopter landing pad. Nothing has been found yet. Excavations will continue."

The excavations started March 9 and lasted four days after claims that the bodies of several people murdered in the Southeast in the 1990s had been dumped in local wells owned by BOTAŞ. Pieces of bone, articles of clothing, a tuft of hair and what are believed to be fragments of human skull were found during the previous four-day excavation. The investigation of the wells is part of the inquiry launched after a former informant from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, Abdulkadir Aygan, claimed many people had been murdered by anti-terrorism squads in the 1990s before being buried in the BOTAŞ wells.