ANKARA, Turkey, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- A prosecutor in a Kurdish-majority province in Turkey is investigating claims that police tortured and killed detainees and dumped bodies in wells.
Relatives of 70 missing people appealed to the bar association in Sirnak, Bianet reports. Sirnak, in southeastern Turkey on the border with Iraq, was the site of violent attacks by the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party.
Atilla Ozturk, the prosecutor in the Silopi district, surveyed a site Thursday that was used by the Turkish pipeline company BOTAS. He plans to ask for permission to dig there to determine if bodies were thrown into wells on the site, Bianet said.
The Sirnak Bar Association has also called for an investigation into whether a cemetery for the indigent was used to dispose of bodies.
The national government has made recent high-profile arrests of police and army officers allegedly involved in Ergenekon, an ultra-nationalist group. The group is said to have attacked ethnic minorities, especially Kurds, and planned to overthrow the government.
