JINHA

AMED - Musa Çitil is a Turkish army officer recently promoted to major general despite the rape and killings he ordered while assigned to the Kurdish region in the 1990s. Now, Musa has been assigned again: to the Kurdish city of Diyarbakır.

Musa Çitil became notorious in the Kurdish region of Turkey for the killings, disappearances and rapes that occurred under his command in the 1990s. Despite the widespread complaints about the then-regional military police commander, Musa has been acquitted of charges of torture, killing and rape, in cases denounced by the European Court of Human Rights. Now, after a promotion from brigadier general to major general, Musa has been reassigned once more to the Kurdish region.

Musa has faced 13 sentences of aggravated life in prison related to the killings of 13 villagers in the Derik region of Mardin province in 1993 to 1994. Musa "behaved indifferently, made no distinction between terrorists and civilians and saw citizens as potential terrorists," according to the chief prosecutor's case against him. The prosecutor also demonstrated that even when Musa had no reason to suspect individuals of crimes, he killed them arbitrarily.

Courts cited "security reasons" for moving the case from the Kurdish region (where the crimes took place) to the Turkish province of Çorum. There, the case ended in an eventual acquittal, after Musa said that he "didn't remember most of it." Courts never saw fit to detain Musa.

Musa's sexual crimes against women in the region under his command also went unpunished. A woman named Şükran Esen came forward to say that in the 1993 and 1994, she was repeatedly arrested on the express orders of Musa Çitil. Şükran was then repeatedly subjected to sexual torture under arrest. Şükran, unable to speak for years about the incidents, testified about her crimes to Eren Keskin (a lawyer known for her work with victims of state-ordered sexual torture).

In 2003, Mardin prosecutors opened a case against Musa and 405 of his soldiers on charges of rape and maltreatment. Despite the forensic medical reports brought as evidence, the court dismissed the case. The European Court of Human Rights has fined Turkey, ruling that there was inadequate investigation in the case.

Now, Musa has been assigned as a commander in the largely Kurdish province of Diyarbakır.

(fk/cm)