After the recent surfacing of footage depicting BDP deputies meeting with and embracing PKK terrorists, security forces have revisited tracked conversations held by party members in Ağrı. Code words were used to describe a 'mine' and 'Molotov cocktail, while those who wanted to join the organization were given instructions on how to do so.
A series of BDP administrators in Ağrı's Diyadin district had their phones tapped in order to listen in on conversations held with members of the PKK terrorist organization. The conversations recorded, brought the BDP-PKK connection to light as BDP members requested explosives, while also instructing a young girl on how to join the terrorist militia.
In an operation staged in Diyadin on February 1st, 11 suspects were detained, including BDP Diyadin District Chairman Musa Zorbay, for acting in the name of the PKK's "City Assembly Diyadin" construct. At the time Zorbay and his assistant Seyat Kaya, Cenap İlboğa the Ağrı representative for the Mesopotamia Association of Assistance and Solidarity for Families with Lost Relatives (MEYA-DER) and BDP members Ahmet Temel and İsmet Kahraman were kept under arrest while six BDP members were released pending trial. The suspects faced trial at Erzurum's 2nd High Criminal Court for 'being members of a terrorist organization and acting on behalf of a terrorist organization.' The details in the 160-page case indictment clearly reveal concrete evidence of connections between BDP administrators and the PKK.
AN ORDER FOR EXPLOSIVES!
Records from telephone tapping, conducted upon court order, detail conversations held on recruiting members to the organization. Seyat Kaya is taped instructing a 15 year-old girl to go to the Hakkâri BDP administration in order to join the terrorist organization. Recordings also prove that Molotov cocktails were prepared within the BDP building and show party administrators requesting for Molotov Cocktails and materials in code to members of the terrorist organization. In cell phone conversations that transpired between 2010 and 2011, Zorbay requested mines be sent by PKK members or the organization's sympathizers. In one recording, a terrorist warns Zorbay not to speak over the phone.
The indictment also includes a testimony by a recruit who was deceived into joining the PKK's mountain-wing however escaped just 15 days later and surrendered to security forces in Van. The testimony states; "From time to time I would visit the BDP Diyadin District Organization. They suggested I join the PKK. They later sent me to Hakkâri, from where I was taken to the organization in a group of six or seven of us."
In light of the evidence and testimonies, all BDP administrators who were tried under arrest received sentences. Zorbay was sentenced to ten years, Seyat Kaya got twelve, Ahmet Temel and İsmet Karaman received seven each while Cenap İlboğa was sentenced to six years and three months.
An excerpt from a telephone recordings…
SENDING A FEMALE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT TO THE ORGANIZATION
G.A.(Female student): I am from… village.
Seyat Kaya: Hello.
G.A.: Mr. Seyat I want to go up into the mountains.
Seyat Kaya: Look, we can't discuss such things over the telephone.
G.A.: I swear I have had it up to here; I am in a bad psychological state.
Seyat Kaya: Let's send you to Hakkâri and our friends there can help you.
G.A.: O.K.
Seyat Kaya: I will be in Diyadin at nine in the morning.
G.A.: Okay, okay.
This is a translation of an article originally written by Sinan Aydın.
