An independent deputy candidate for Sunday's parliamentary elections was found dumped and handcuffed on a roadside in southeastern Turkey late Wednesday.
İbrahim Halil Göğüş, 44, had gone missing on Saturday when he visited Karaköprü, a district of the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa for an election campaign. Suspecting he was abducted, the police had detained several people in connection with his disappearance though they were later released.
On Wednesday night, eyewitnesses tipped off the police that a man was thrown from a car on a road connecting Gaziantep province to Göğüş's constituency in Şanlıurfa. It was discovered that the man in question was Göğüş. He had plastic handcuffs on his wrists and was blindfolded. He told the police officers who found him that he did not remember what happened. Following a brief treatment at the hospital, he was brought to police headquarters in Gaziantep for an interview. He told reporters that he did not know the people who abducted him.
Göğüş, 44, a tour guide in Japan, was nominated for an independent seat in the province of Şanlıurfa in the 550-seat Parliament for the upcoming general elections. His family reported him missing after he went to Karaköprü.
Şanlıurfa is located in a region where kidnappings and threats by the terrorist organization PKK, which has ties with Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP), have been ramped up ahead of the general elections. The province, however, has not been the scene of any election-related violence.
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