Kurdish deputy's murder: Still unsolved after 29 years

Cihan Sincar, the wife of Kurdish deputy Mehmet Sincar who was killed in September 1993, said on the anniversary of the murder that the statute of limitations on the case would be up in a year, and she was determined not to let the case slip into oblivion.

Mehmet Sincar, Mardin deputy for the pro-Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP) in early 1990s, was assassinated in the city of Batman on 4 September 1993, when he arrived in the city to carry out an investigation concerning recent extrajudicial killings of two senior party officials.

While the assassination had been first claimed by a "Turkish Revenge Brigade," -linked to ultranationalist circles- people affiliated with the Turkish Hezbollah, an armed Islamist group assisting Turkish forces in their covert operations against Kurdish activists, were eventually targeted as suspects in the ongoing criminal investigation.

In a 1997 report ("Susurluk Report") presented to the Turkish Prime Ministry, it had been stated that the assassination of Mehmet Sincar was planned and carried out by a group of four people including Ahmet Demir, alias "Yesil", who was involved in the assassinations of prominent Kurdish politician Vedat Aydin and Kurdish intellectual and writer Musa Anter.

Although "Yesil" was known to have taken part in the covert operations of the notorious JITEM, the intelligence and counter terrorism branch under the Turkish Gendarmerie Command, neither Yesil nor JITEM were accused in the indictment on the assassination of Mehmet Sincar.

A Cihan Yildiz, allegedly affiliated with the Turkish Hezbollah, was arrested in Australia in 2008 and extradited to Turkey.

Yildiz was released in 2019 after the Turkish Constitutional Court ruled on a retrial because the previous trial had been held in a court involving military judges.

The next hearing session in the case will be held in a Diyarbakir court on 12 December, with only one person, Yildiz, accused.