Prosecutors on Wednesday requested "aggravated" life imprisonment for four people, including a mayor, in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır for reportedly providing the PKK terrorist organization with a municipality-owned excavator to dig a pit in September last year.
The Chief Prosecutor's Office in Diyarbakır on Wednesday issued an indictment, which provided detailed information about the incident, the PKK, and the formation of YDG-H, the youth branch of the PKK.
Abdulsamed Bilgin, mayor of Dicle district in Diyarbakır, deputy mayor Fevziye Arukan, the district's technical works director, İlhami Güzel, and excavator operator Fesih K. have been accused of "deteriorating the unity and integrity of the state."
Bilgin and Güzel were arrested in October last year and are still in prison.
According to the indictment, the PKK terrorists dug pits with help from construction machines before carrying out an assault in Dicle district of Diyarbakır province on Sep. 2, 2015. The terrorist organization also attacked security forces by planting explosives into the pits and detonating them.
The armed rocket and bomb attacks on Sept.2, 2015 by the terrorist group broke connection of the Dicle district with neighboring districts through these pits, said the indictment.
On the same day, a construction machine belonging to Dicle Municipality was found abandoned in an empty field after a pit had been dug in Dicle.
The machine's operator Fesih K.,who used it during the incidents, was arrested, according to the information provided in the indictment.
In October 2015, Bilgin and Güzel were arrested and had been serving a prison sentence since then.
On Tuesday, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said there were many rulings on detaining, arresting, and firing mayors and municipality officials, who were affiliated with the PKK terrorist organization, calling their relationship with the organization "unacceptable".
