Unidentified remains found in death wells

Bone pieces and stained undershirt was found in the excavation of wells in Silopi, a southern city in Turkey, the Chairman of Sirnak Bar Association Nisirvan Elçi told. Wells located at five sites belonging to the state-owned Turkish Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS) were opened early yesterday morning in a search for victims of alleged murders by an illegal group within the gendarmerie.

He also said the remains were sent to forensic lab for analysis and it remains to be seen whether bones belong to a human or a wild animal.

The existence of the death wells has long been an issue of contention. Several people have claimed that JITEM, a clandestine gendarmerie intelligence unit set up in the late ´80s to counter ethnic separatism in the Southeast, was behind the killings of hundreds of people in the region in the 1990s. It was alleged that JITEM summarily executed a large number of people, doused their bodies with acid and buried them in wells located near BOTAS facilities in a number of southeastern cities.

A prosecutor from the Silopi Public Prosecutor´s Office conducted a field survey in February on BOTAS-owned land in Sirnak, calling for excavations at two sites in the area.

Many well-known figures have so far made statements about the existence of the death wells, also called "acid wells." Among these were Abdülkadir Aygan, who was a JITEM member, and Tuncay Güney, who is seen as a key figure in the ongoing investigation into a clandestine organization known as Ergenekon. Both previously claimed that the bodies of hundreds of people reported missing in the past might have been burned with acid and buried in wells in southeastern Turkey.

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=169160