Promotion for rapist, killer soldier
09:54
JINHA
ANKARA - A Turkish military officer charged with the rape and killing of villagers in the province of Mardin has been promoted.
Brigadier General Musa Çitli has been promoted to major general, despite the 13 counts of aggravated life in prison that he hasfaced. He is one of two brigadier generals to advance to this rank.
In 2012, Musa was charged with the killings of 13 villagers in the Derik area of Mardin province. The killings took place during the period when the region was under his command. He has also been accused of overseeing repeated rapes.Musa was acquitted after the case was moved to the west of Turkey.
"There were hundreds of operations like this. 20 years have passed now. I don't remember most of them," said Musa, speaking in court at the time. "We fought against terror for years within the framework of our legal responsibilities." Musa alsodenied knowledge of the secretive counter-terror unit JITEM, active in the Kurdish region and implicated in such killings.
The families of the victims and eyewitnesses have testified that under Musa's command, villagers were kidnapped and killed at a high rate in Derik. A woman testified to being raped while arrested by Musa's soldiers on three separate occasions in 1993 and 1994.
(ekip/dk/cm)