DISCLAIMER: The defense writings of Ayten Ozturk are heavily traumatizing, and contains explicit content.
Turkey’s Guantánamo is a secret torture centre in Ankara, where 27 people have been kidnapped and taken to, via Turkey’s Black Transporter.
Ayten Öztürk is the first woman known to have been subjected to torture here. Because of her gender, the tortures take much heavier forms, including sexual torture. Ayten explains the missing six months of her life with every detail in Istanbul at the Third High Criminal Court where she was accused of DHKP-C membership.
Ayten’s case would appear in front of a judge after one year, where she would make a 12-page long defence describing the inhumane pain she was subjected to in an unknown state institution.
Ayten explains the narratives of torture, the MIT Black Transporter, which when compared to the narratives of other victims, shows great similarity.
AYTENS STORY
Ayten Öztrük is from a family of Syrian origin, they are Arab citizens of the Republic of Turkey. She is a university graduate who lived with her family in Hatay and later moved to Lebanon for a while after being displaced from Syria. Whilst trying to seek refuge in a European country after facing heavy conditions in Lebanon, a sack is placed around her head.
THE FULL TEXT OF AYTEN ÖZTÜRK’S DEFENCE
I was released after I made my first defence on this case on September 10, 2018, through SEGBIS. However, after my case in Ankara merged with this case, I was to be tried again.
The main reason for a lawsuit against me in Ankara was the fact that I was wanted for my case in Istanbul, which I was not aware of. My release from my Istanbul trial also eliminated the reason for Ankara’s arrest. But I’m still being detained pointlessly.
I’m going to answer my claims about both of my cases, but first I want to tell you what I’ve been through until I get here. I’ve been looking for a body where I can share what I’ve been through for about a year. Every time I tried to tell my story, I was blocked, I was ignored. However, facts cannot be concealed, covered, and sooner or later they emerge. Therefore, I demand that my defence be recorded.
What I’m going to tell you is that I was held in a secret place after an illegal and illegitimate six months of torture. My experience is inhuman and unlawful from start to finish.
The date of my detention in the Ankara indictment is as of August 28, 2018; this is the official date on the safety records. However, for the six months before August 28, I was unofficially tortured in a secret place. Therefore, history in the custody record is incorrect and false.
I was detained on 8 March 2018 by Lebanese authorities in the Lebanese airport. İ was taken into custody, where ‘Kadri’ from the Turkey Consulate called and spoke to me, they took pictures of me with their phones. After this meeting, the Lebanese authorities repeatedly searched me and my belongings. There were no criminal elements. The reason they kept me in custody was that I carried a passport that I bought from smugglers which belonged to someone else. I lived in Syria for ten years. And because of the war conditions, I wanted to go to Europe by using a passport to which I would not need a visa.
The Lebanese authorities said they would release me. But on the evening of March 13, they took me to the airport in a hurry. I was taken there with my eyes tied shut and my hands behind my back in handcuffs. When we arrived at the airport, they opened my hands and eyes in the car. It was a private entrance to the airport. They hastened to a blind spot. The people whose faces I did not see there tied my eyes quickly and put a sack on my head. They handcuffed my hands from behind. They put me on the plane via torture, as the moon rushed swiftly and in panic. I knew from the quiet operation of the plane that it was a private plane.
After landing for about an hour, when I was getting off the plane, I shouted saying I’ve been kidnapped and said who I am to get attention. After landing, at a distance of about 15 steps from the plane, they rushed and pushed me somewhere aggressively. The same people quickly opened my handcuffs at the place we entered, and forcibly stripped me naked with torture. Then they dragged me naked and threw me onto a sponge in a cell. I was still blindfolded. They threw me two pieces of clothes.
I waited for a while with my hands behind my handcuffs and blindfolded. Again they aggressively opened my door and quickly shoved me into a room six steps away. They put me on a chair and left.
I heard a voice in the room which cannot pronounce the letter ‘R’. It said: “Welcome Ayten. We know you. We want to learn a few things from you. Actually, we already know, but we want to get it confirmed. Will you talk?” they asked. I had nothing to tell them.
The person I assumed to be middle-aged spoke formal Turkish. “Look, nobody will talk to you but for me. It’s just you and me in this room. No camera, we’re talking. Then you can go out. ”
When I said that I would not speak again, in a harsher tone he said “I was given infinite authority over you. This state raised a private plane for you. This place is unlike any other place. Everyone here does their job professionally. You can’t get out of here if you don’t talk. We can live here for months and years. We do not harm the core organs of the body. Will you talk?” he asked. I told him that I would not speak under any circumstances in a place where I was not tortured by people I did not know.
“This is not safety or prison, there is no time limit here. There is a God, and there is us. Our promise goes on. ” When I told him I wouldn’t talk again, they threw me back in the cell.
For about 25 days, my hands were handcuffed behind my back, blindfolded and a sack on my head. At first, I couldn’t detect the intervals they opened the door. I was pushing my brain in order not to lose my thought or lose consciousness. I could count the days according to the opening and closing of the door. I knew it was morning when they tried to force breakfast.
Twice a day the door was opened forcibly and three times to take me to the toilet. They were trying to force me to eat. The first days I was just drinking water. They gave me a glass of water when they took me to the toilet. Sometimes they didn’t. In the tiny cell, I was suffocating with the sack in my head, having difficulty breathing. My mouth, throat, and nose dried up from thirst. Sometimes my nose was bleeding, and the blood would accumulate on my hands and dry.
Except for the toilet, my arms were handcuffed all day. My eyes were tied even when I was in the toilet. I had pain, swelling, and numbness in my arms because of the handcuffs. There were wounds on my wrists. Although I was blindfolded, I realized that the door was half open whilst in the toilet. When I said, “is this how I’m going to do it, you can see me” they shouted, “Yes, you will, if we want you to”. Every moment there was turned into torture. “There is no honour, morality, decency here. All of this remained outside” they shouted.
At first, the person who could not pronounce em ‘R’ questioned me almost every day. In one of the interrogations, the interrogator removed the sack from my head. My eye patch is stuck. The interrogator saw blood accumulating in my nose and flowing to my mouth. The blood on my hands was dry, my wrists were inflamed. It was probably the end of the first month. It was the first time that I was able to wash my mouth and nose while I was blindfolded again. I knew I smelled awful. But I didn’t want to bathe there either. I didn’t want anything from them. This made them even angrier.
“There are no lawyers, judges or prosecutors here. If you die here, nobody will hear, not soul, nobody cares. Nobody calls you anyway. They gave up on you. An investigation hasn’t even been recorded anywhere” the interrogator said.
Especially in the 90s, I knew that dozens of people were lost and murdered in our country. They could have done the same to me. But I believed no one called me.
One night they left me dehydrated. I heard some sounds from my cell. I knew it was a camera. I was being watched for 24 hours. They intervened in the morning. I was blindfolded, my hands cuffed, they took me to the infirmary, not far from my cell, tied my arms and legs with a flexible elastic band and gave me serum. They also tried to open my eyes. About 25 days my eyes never opened, eyelids stuck. They opened my eyes with a liquid. I couldn’t look at the light. At first, I saw those who mistreated me. They were snow-capped. Only his eyes were visible. The infirmary had two chairs and medical supplies.
I heard the voice of a woman for the first time outside the infirmary. She was talking to someone as if she were organizing a business. “The Commission will come, hence the following…. “Or something like that. From both this woman’s speech and the footsteps on the upper floor of the cell, I guessed that this was an official institution. The official basement of this official institution, which I don’t know where it was, was the torture centre.
After the intervention, psychological torture continued. “If you refuse to take a bath, we will force-wash you with a hose and a brush. Everyone will adapt to where they come from, we are doing everything by force.” The place they called Banya was covered with a thin curtain near the toilet. They could see from there too. They turned my special days into torture, just like the bathroom. They were giving me my pads one by one and making immoral comments. It was a place where humanity had ended.
Sometimes there were sounds of torture during the day and sometimes at night. Screaming, crying sounds were coming from close. It was always male voices. Usually “Are you going to talk or should we call your brothers? Should brother Haci come? If you want to get out of here, talk ”. I don’t know how many people were in custody there. But I was guessing that there were seven cells from the doors opening and closing. I had no contact with the people in custody there.
Presumably, in the second month, they opened my eyes in my cell and handcuffed my hands from the front. I was blindfolded and sacked again when I needed to be taken to the toilet, interrogation or infirmary. They took me by the arm and harassed me at every opportunity.
When my eyes were opened in the cell, I could see what kind of cell I was in. I want to describe the cell. My cell was covered with a grey carpet. The camera was in the upper right corner. The walls were about two meters high. On two opposite walls, there was a plate-sized vent. The air conditioning was the ventilation system. It was grey, parallel with the white door across. The cell was about 1.5 x 2 meters in size. At the top of the door, there was a gap with about one intertwined fence. With the spotlight installed here, a part of the cell was illuminated. The inside part of the door was covered with carpet. When I knocked on the door, there was no sound. The floor had a sponge padding set. I predicted that they had working hours on the upper floor, the sound of women’s shoes were heels. I assumed it was an official institution.
It had been about 2.5 months. My body had wounds, my skin was flaking. I was rapidly weakening. They intervened forcibly and tested me. Because of my wounds, they were forcibly applying a gel to my whole body and making immoral words.
After the last intervention, the interrogator, who could not pronounce the letters “R”, referred me to another person. He said that the person he transferred was authorized and would make the final decision about me. By doing so, they implied that they would resort to hardship. That’s what happened. Every time that door opened, it turned into torture. Always “You’re going to die around here, is it worth it? Who knows you resisted. What happens when you shut up? You’re not worth anything to anybody. What changes when you stay silent? No one gives a fuck about you, motherfucker.”
My air conditioner sometimes gave cold and sometimes warm air to my cell. Sometimes it smelled of cigarettes. A couple of times they gave cold air for about half a day. I was freezing. When they gave very hot air, I was sweating and having trouble breathing. Sometimes they played 6-7 hours of loud music. The music we were forced to listen to: Marches praising Turkishness, percussive and loud foreign songs, emotional Turkish songs and folk songs.
Psychological torture continued every day. Those who opened my door daily said: “The state raised us. We have all kinds of equipment here. If he’s broken, we’ll put him in a plaster cast. We treat him, stand him up, then proceed to torture in sessions. This goes on. There’s no end to this. This is hell. You have no salvation from here. We know all about human anatomy. We work professionally. You don’t die, but you beg to die. And one day if you do leave, we do not know that you will be in good psychological health” they said.
My guess was the two shifts that opened my door. In both shifts, one of them was very aggressive and the other one was trying to convince me. But they couldn’t wait to torture me physically because they threatened me every day. From the voices, I understand there were 10 of them. Most spoke English properly. A few people were speaking with the Anatolian dialect. From the sounds, I could tell that they did the cleaning themselves.
The so-called authorized cross-questioner that told me that I am going to stay there for a while ordered the torturers to do anything to feed me. After this command, they took me blindfolded into the interrogation room. They opened my arms and cuffed my wristbands to the ring on the wall. One put electricity through my hands, fingers and various parts of my body and while he did that, one opened my mouth and tried to force nourishing fluid on me. They put hard plastic in my mouth and tried to give it to me through this plastic tubing. I had wounds on my mouth and lips. After that, they took the tubing out and by pulling my hair they gave it to me by having my head down. I was struggling to breathe, I was nauseous. My clothes were wet and sticky from the sugary liquid. During that torture, the smell of liquid food stayed on my body for about a month. Not only am I getting the liquid, but I was also forced to eat because they threatened me with electroshocks.
After a while, they started to physically torture me to get me to talk. I am going to summarise the torture that lasted for about 20 days.
In the first days, the torture took place in the morning, afternoon and evening. Later on, I also got tortured at later hours. The remaining time I got psychologically tortured, sexually abused and was forced to stay awake late. I was taken into the torture room blindfolded. First, they undressed me, then they put me into a position that is similar to hanging someone and I got chained to a wall by my wrists. They gave me electroshocks on almost all parts of my naked body and held my body in this position for a while. When they did that my body trembled and I screamed as loud as I could. They continued several times until I passed out.
Two scar-like spots were formed on the parts of my body where they gave me electroshocks. These scars have a distance of 2cm between each other. My friends counted the scars on my body when I got arrested and taken to jail. I have 898 scars. When I was about to pass out they brought me to a room with a toilet and bath in it and tortured me there with pressured water. There were times where they tortured me with the drowning method. While one held the hot pressured water, the other one held a bag to my head to fill it with water. They also used the electrical device during this torture method.
One day I accidentally opened the door. I saw a civilian with no mask on. He was tall, skinny, around 45 years old and he had a long and skinny face. He had a full beard, glasses, slightly white hair and small eyes. He immediately closed the door and went away when he noticed that I saw him. They tortured me harder because I saw him. They tortured me for about 5 hours. The rest of the day they put me in a coffin-like room and forced me to stand for a couple of hours. It was impossible to move in that so-called coffin. But in the cell, they opened the door at every opportunity to beat, threaten and insult me. At least two times they hit me very hard, especially on my face or head. They continued until I bled from my nose and mouth and my eyes and face were swollen. There was a type of electroshock that went through my small finger to my toes. They used that with a remote controller by tying metal rings to my fingers.
A few times it went so far that I didn’t wake up after being unconscious. When they took a break from using electroshock they let me hang somewhere and abused every part of my body with their fingers, sticks and a baton. They tried to insert the baton into every sexual part of my body and did all kinds of immoral things. They threatened to rape me with a stick named “Harbi”. They hit my feet that were swollen from standing up with a baton and a stick and placed me like the bastinado. They threatened to break my toes with pliers. They put something sharp in three of my fingers and burned my small finger. The wound on my finger and the inflammation on my nail didn’t heal for months. Sometimes they turned me over and tied me up by my feet to let me hang downwards. In the meantime, they hit my feet.
They put me down and tortured me with different methods when my body got weak and I felt sick. For example, they tried to have me sit in an inflatable wheel to rape me with a baton. They tortured me harder when I had my period and kept me awake. One time they pressed pads to my eyes and let me wait for a couple of hours until I got sick. They said: “This is nothing. We have new technological methods. We could give you chemical stuff if necessary.”
One time when I was hanging down they injected an unknown liquid in my arm. They called someone that was present during every period of that torture ‘Devrim’ and the other one ‘Haci’. One day they opened my eyes in the torture room. They were wearing black clothes and had black masks on. There were 5-6 people in it. The torture room was 2.5×4 meters big. When you entered the room you immediately saw two rings made out of metal. There were blood and fluid stains on the wall.
One part of the room was two stairs high, it had a table and behind it was a picture of Atatürk with his uniform on, and a chair by a coffee table. On top of the table were a whip, a truncheon, a stick, plier, a gun-like device that they used to give me electroshocks and 2 spot lamps. In the meantime, they gave me a mirror. My face was purple, dark and swollen. My body was full of scars and bruises. In that condition, they told me that they treated me humanly and that I should work with them. They said they would give me as much money as I wanted, the opportunity to live everywhere I want and a new identity but I would have to work with them first. They rehung me and started to whip me out when I said once more that I am not going to talk. They said that they will raise the extent of the force and that they will use different torture methods. They hit my head against a wall and yelled: “Get these things out of your head. What motivates you? Get the things that motivate you out” even though I had nothing to say. They pulled my hair until it almost fell out and threw me around. A portion of my hair remained in clumps in their hands.
“If we want to then we’ll skin your scalp,” they told me. Bruises and swellings were formed on my head, on my forehead and nose. They injected me once again with a serum and used a gel on my body and face. They said that they allegedly treated me to continue torturing me.
The treatment phase lasted for about 20 days. During this time two short and old men with suits and masks entered the room daily to look after my body. They were accompanied by 5-6 others that looked at my body. But I think that mainly only two old men were commissioned. They asked me daily if I am going to talk and threatened me. According to my estimation, the treatment torture lasted for 20 days. Then they brought me once again blindfolded and cuffed to an interrogation room. The last cross-questioner I talked to said: “Your time here is over, you are going to leave anyway. We can talk if you want to.”
When I said once again that I am not going to talk he replied with: “We will bring you to justice. Do not come up with a dumb thought, you will die in jail.”
Then he brought me back to my cell and gave me my clothes. They put me in chains made out of plastic and blindfolded me. I was put between two other persons in a car that was a bit high up, had 2 facing seats and a door that was opened from the side. They put me headphones with motorcycle sounds on. After an hour the car stopped. They let me get out and we took a few steps. Then they cut the plastic handcuffs off, opened my eyes and removed themselves from the car. It was pitch-dark. The clothes they left behind attracted my attention.
After a while, I was surrounded by a few people. In panic and with flashlights in their hands, they asked me who I was and what my name is. It was an open terrain, it was a high village. From a distance, the lights of the town looked like dots. I didn’t answer their questions. They pretended to have found me there. A darker skinned person that had her hair combed back and had a monobrow grabbed my arm. He ordered the other persons to go through my bag. They briefly went through my bag and the smell of panic was in the air.
The same person showed me his ID and said “I am Ankara counter-terrorism police. We’ve had a tip about you”. And they put me in a van. They called me by my name. He asked, “We took you as Ayten, isn’t your name Ayten?”. I then understood that the counter-terrorism police were collaborating with those that tortured me, so I did not answer them.
The date I was taken by the counter-terrorism police on this open field is 28 August 2018. It was as if the torture I endured in the previous six months had never actually happened – a false custody report was even kept. Could the Ankara police proceed to claim they do not know who detained and tortured me for months? By hiding what they know, doesn’t the Ankara police practically reveal their involvement in my torture?
What could I, a person of about 40 kilograms, covered in hundreds of bruises and barely standing – what business could I have had in an open field that I do not know of? What could I have been doing there alone at night, even though I do not know my way around Ankara, and especially without any Turkish money? What’s more, the counter-terrorism police, who saw that the items in the bags in front of me were mixed up and some were even ruined, could they still claim that they took me as a result of a tip?
There is nothing justified, legitimate, and rational about the scenario made up about me being there. It is impossible for anybody to believe this irrational scenario. If I was wanted by the state, why were there no formal procedures? Why was I abducted and tortured instead?
I have been treated for months because of the tortures I experienced. My treatment process, the damages that I suffered, and the drugs I use are all in the prison health file. There are still marks and scars on various parts of my body. Because of my muscle loss, I’ve become weak and numb on parts of my body like my arms and legs. I still suffer from the strong blows to my head; the pain of the swollen areas continues. Due to chronic asthma and anaemia, I have to use lifelong medications and have regular controls.
As a result of the medications I used, the wounds on my body have healed; but my wounds on the inside will never heal.
As for claims made about me, I have been living in Syria for about ten years. I am of Antakya and Arab origin, so most of my relatives live in the Latakia province of Syria. I lived there with them. I saw the shattered bodies and cities of Syria in the attacks made by America and its collaborators. There were also the deaths of my relatives. I lived in hunger, poverty, and lawlessness with the people there. I know that America is responsible for the war in Syria. America has previously killed millions of people in Iraq; invaded Afghanistan; divided Libya into two. Now America wants to intervene in Venezuela. America even threatens Iran and Turkey from time to time.
Hunger, poverty, the fact that there are dozens of public and secret American bases in our countries, and all the collaborators who make us dependent on the American state are the reason for my anger. I am against the Zionist Israel who occupied the land and shed the blood of the Palestinian people and its supporters. Because I am an anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist international person, in the past, I have been subjected to unjust cases and torture. These were just an example of injustices in our country.
I decided to live in Syria because I loved my country and didn’t want these injustices to continue. My family and I had our great share of the injustices in our country. I had family members that had lost their lives during my six months of torture in custody where they did not receive any news from me. My father, who lived in unspeakable pain, passed away with concern, with his longing for me. He never found out that I was alive. When he died, I was in a secret prison. I learned that my father had passed away from my lawyer the day I was taken to court.
If your children came home from school half an hour late, you’d be mad, right? My parents hadn’t heard any news from me in six months. At that time, I was buried alive in a grave. Can you imagine the pain this caused my loved ones?
Now, I think you can understand why I lived in Syria. I then decided to move to a European country last year because of the war conditions in Syria. Some of my relatives were gone. I was taken into custody when I was trying to go to Europe, and then I experienced the things I previously stated.
I have no connection with any illegal organization anywhere. I do not know the names in the indictment. I also do not have a code name. I didn’t know there was a case against me, and a list with my name on it. There has been no information regarding my situation, so why am I still under arrest? Why was I tortured for six months?
After three days of my detention in Ankara, I wanted to tell the prosecutor and the Magistrates’ Court about the torture I was experiencing. My body was covered in bruises and I couldn’t stand, but they took no notice. “This is not our issue,” they said. They didn’t even worry or ask a single question. “Make a criminal complaint,” they told me.
I filed a criminal complaint while I was in prison. The complaint was denied, and the reason why was because I was on ‘the list’. There are dozens of intellectuals, artists, anti-imperialists, and anti-fascists on that list. There are people with revolutionary and democratic ideas. To be wanted from a simple case is enough to be on that list.
I looked at the indictment of my cause in Istanbul which caused me to be searched, and it is obvious that I had nothing to do with that incident. So much so that I was released after I made my first defence. They know very well that there is not a single claim against me in that indictment. But I do know why I have been detained for six months in a place that I don’t know, by torturers who say they work for the state. Who will be held accountable for this? Is it going to be sealed and put away like it never happened? I hope you won’t keep quiet about this. Before my case is even brought before you, my punishment is torture. While torture is supposedly treated with zero tolerance, I lived those things. There is a lot of torture in the country, and as long as people stay quiet, it will continue. I am going to continue my struggle for justice. I am inviting you to this mission.
In the Ankara indictment, the writings of the people who claimed to be me through the press and the internet were shown as ‘evidence’. It is natural for anybody who knows what I am going through to claim to be me. I am an anti-imperialist, internationalist, revolutionary, democratic person. Anyone who shares these thoughts and is human, can embrace me and share my pain. Only those minds that have been dehumanized and considers torture to be the right method will take into account these claims.
You know very well that this case is essentially a torture case. All claims against me are irrelevant. While I should have been out already, I wasn’t brought to my previous courts for security reasons. My defence is denied. You know very well the conditions of imprisonment, the state of the prisons, the arbitrariness that is applied every day.
While my health condition is not conducive to living even in a closed space, I live again every day in the torture that I endure, apart from the damages in my body, the continuation of my detention is the continuation of the extrajudicial executions about me that started with torture.
Finally; I deny all charges, I have no connection with any illegal organization, I have no code name. I am not involved in any illegal activity. I want the place where I was tortured for six months and those responsible to be investigated and tried. I want the Lebanese government to confess to delivering me to the torturers in Turkey who had come to abduct me. I will continue in all legal attempts to prosecute those responsible. I demand that you have an initiative in this matter. I demand my release and certificate.
AYTEN ÖZTÜRK
