Bahtiyar Aydın (194622 October 1993) was a Turkish general. He was a regional commander in the

Turkish Gendarmerie The Gendarmerie General Command () is the national gendarmerie force of the Republic of Turkey. It is a service branch of the Turkish Ministry of Interior responsible for the maintenance of the public order in areas that fall outside the jurisdi ...

Lice, Turkey Lice (; ; ; ) is a Districts of Turkey, district and town of Diyarbakır Province, Turkey. Its area is and population is 24,364 (2022). It is located 90 km from the capital, Diyarbakır, and the current kaymakam, governor of the town is Kerem Ye ...

in southeastern Turkey when he was assassinated by a sniper using a Kanas rifle. Officially a victim of the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, isDespite the PKK's 12th Congress announcing plans for total organisational dissolution, the PKK has not yet been dissolved de facto or de jure. a Kurds, Kurdish militant political organization and armed ...

(PKK) (which denied responsibility), his death has long been considered suspicious. He was said to have "close relations with the public" and not to approve of the extrajudicial violence which was commonly used by the Turkish military in south-eastern Turkey at the time.

Response to assassination

According to former PKK commander Şemdin Sakık, Aydın was one of those assassinated by the Doğu Çalışma Grubu, an alleged group within the Turkish military said to be linked to the Ergenekon organization.

Today's Zaman ''Today's Zaman'' (Zaman is Turkish for 'time' or 'age') was an English-language daily newspaper based in Turkey. Established on 17 January 2007, it was the English-language edition of the Turkish daily '' Zaman.'' ''Today's Zaman'' included dom ...

, 1 June 2012
Ex-PKK commander Sakık blames military junta for deaths of 33 soldiers
Other witnesses to the

Ergenekon trials The Ergenekon trials or the Ergenekon conspiracy, were a series of high-profile trials which took place in 2008–2016 in Turkey in which 275 people, including military officers, journalists and opposition lawmakers, all alleged members of Erge ...

have also said that Aydın was assassinated by Ergenekon - possibly by PKK informants working with

JITEM Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele or Jandarma İstihbarat Teşkilatı (abbr. ''JİTEM'' or ''JİT''; English: "Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism" or "Gendarmerie Intelligence Organization") is the intelligence department of ...

. Aydın was one of those who believed the "Kurdish question" could not be solved by force, and needed a peaceful solution with economic and social measures. In 2013 Diyarbakir prosecutors asked the local Gendarmerie for the original 1994 document allegedly containing testimony from an unnamed PKK suspect admitting to the assassination of Aydın. The Gendarmerie said that no such document or testimony could be found in its records, although a copy of part of the alleged testimony had been sent to a parliamentary commission in 1994. In October 2013 a prosecutor indicted two retired military officers, saying that there was no evidence of PKK involvement.''

'', 27 October 2013
Innocent man in jail for 18 years for murder of army commander

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aydin, Bahtiyar 1946 births 1993 deaths Turkish Army generals Assassinated Turkish people People from Piraziz Turkish Gendarmerie personnel Deaths by firearm in Turkey