Habip Akbas, a SWAT officer who heroically fought terrorism in Turkey for 21 years, died in a fatal vehicle accident after serving 21 months in jail.
Selda Akbas, Habib Akbas’s wife, detailed her painful experiences since 2015 in an article about her late husband:
“He once again spoke out about injustices he suffered all those years along with the other KHK victims in Turkey. My husband became a special operations police in September 1995, and his first duty place was Van. We got married the same year, and I went with him. In 2000, he was appointed to Samsun. My husband had worked as a special operations officer since the first day of his career. In 2003, he was assigned as a mission guard at the Los Angeles Consulate General. He was in charge of guarding the consul’s house and consulates. We were there until 2006. We came back to Samsun in 2006. Then we went back to Van after a couple of years. We had lived in Van until 2014. It was only the summer of 2013, as I recall, he worked as a mission guard at the Iraqi Consulate for a few months.

My husband got suspended in March 2014. They accused him of being a member of a parallel structure after the 17-25 Corruption and Bribery Operation. He worked in other units for three months. Then he was offered a mandatory reassignment. We preferred to go to Istanbul since it was our hometown. He started to work in Beylikduzu in June 2014. After a few months, he asked for a transfer to Catalca, close to our village where we grew up. He was in charge of public order until two months before the 2016 coup attempt. On the night of July 15, my husband called his chief and said, “If you need me, I’m ready to come by all means. “I want to do whatever is necessary for my country and my people,” he added. The chief replied, “I will call you if needed.” Since we were at our home together that night, I heard the whole conversation.

My husband was not called to duty that night, obviously. However, he was purged from public service with a decree-law (KHK) no.672, dated September 1, 2016. Our life, which was already challenging, became an unbearable test after that day. In May 2017, the police raided our house. They apprehended my husband right away. He was detained for 12 days. When I went to visit him there, one officer said, “We were going to take you, too! Since you came to us, let’s take you in this time! Suddenly, they arrested me and took me to another place. They interrogated me for hours with the usual questions such as ‘Are you a member of the Gulen Movement? Do you have money at the X bank? Did you do this? Did you do that?` etc.. Then hopefully, I was released. A few days later, on May 30, 2017, he was arrested allegedly using a Bylock mobile application.
However, at his first hearing, it was decided by the court that he didn’t even have the Bylock app on his phone. Even so, we had to endure the outcome of this unjust verdict. He was forced to spend many months in prison without a cause. His indictment was prepared a year later, on May 25, 2018. When nothing came out of Bylock’s accusation, they added the statements of some confessors. Now they accused him of having a bank account at a so-called shady bank. We had a bank account at Bank Asya like every other person in Turkey, and we did not deny that either. But we also had a second account in another bank. Since Bank Asya was receiving less EFT money, we continued to use our account after the bank switched to SDIF, which the court found reasonable.

IT HAD BEEN FOUR MONTHS SINCE HE WAS RELEASED FROM PRISON..
On February 6, 2019, my husband was released on his 4th hearing. The prosecuting officer pleaded for clemency. It had been four months since his release, but apparently, it was just the beginning! Our lives were getting even worse. At first, he couldn’t get his pension, so I had to support my family by working as a dish cleaner at a restaurant. After a time, we went to Ankara, and we could handle the retirement procedures. He was getting his pension per month, but he still had to work at an extra job as we had three children. It’s never been easy to make a living in Turkey. He was working as a driver, and we were working as farmers. We harvested a good deal of fruits and vegetables such as melons, watermelons, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants from our field. On the previous day of the tragic accident, after settling all the electricity and watering issues of the garden, we sat together and talked. He was talking to me in a serious tone as if he felt something deep inside. He said to me that from that day on, all I needed to do was turn the electricity on, and the water would run by itself, and I could just enjoy the yield of our garden. I never understood why he said so back then. But now it’s all clear to me that he somehow wanted to make sure everything was working fine before he left.

After finishing the work, we bought some cookies and sat in our car at around eleven. The field was just above the city, and he looked at the city lights and spoke with a peaceful tone. He said, ‘Thank Almighty that you are here with me.
I am retired now, and I could get my pension regularly. We are together with our children. You’ll see that our crop will double itself. What else could one ask for? I couldn’t think of anything then. But now, when I think to myself, I could have prayed for a longer life for both of us, as well! The following day we had our breakfast together. The weather was stormy. He performed his partial ablution (Wudu) and left the house at 08:30. The tragic accident happened at 09:05. We got the bad news around 11:00. Our last photo shoot together was dated back on February 21, 2019…

My husband and I were on trial at the Istanbul 36th High Criminal Court; our file was the same. The judge listened to those who testified about us in our last hearing in May 2019. They could not say anything other than, “We were reciting the Qur’an and practising our faith.” The judge turned to me this time and said, “Have you got anything to add? “We are the wives of special forces. From the moment our spouses left home, there was no guarantee of their return, and when we got together as wives, all we could do was recite the Quran and pray for their safety. Also, we were reading the translation of the holy book to understand better what we had just read. Your honour, we are Muslim people; it’s the least we could do for our lives and faith!” I continued. He did not comment and adjourned our trial to September 2019, requesting a review of the digital evidence. In other words, we were accused of being guilty just because we recited the Qur’an, prayed and read some religious books!

Alhamdulillah, they couldn’t blame us for being thieves, corrupt, or traitors… Because we are none of them! And I do believe that we will live the time given to us by Almighty, and we will die. But we will definitely reunite in the hereafter, the land of eternal life.
May Allah (Swt/ The most glorified, the highest) grant us to live and die as a righteous person worthy of our Lord. I’d like to be a part of the ummah worthy of our Prophet (Pbh) and a wife worthy of my beloved one.
As a Muslim believer, how can I not be patient and strong? I sincerely trust our destiny, and I do believe with my whole heart that all good and evil comes from Allah. Also, I am one of the special operations police’s wives. We had lived ready to face death since the day we got married. My parents were against our marriage simply because they couldn’t dare put their daughter’s future at risk. However, it’s the life I chose, and I don’t regret it.

HE USED TO SAY, “THEY’RE GOING TO PAY BACK OF WHAT THEY DID IN THE DIVINE COURT OF ALLAH!”
Once my brother put my husband’s body in the morgue, he was no longer a police officer. He was just another innocent person who was oppressed by unlawful accusations while still alive. My husband was a police officer for special operations who fought all kinds of terrorism for 21 years. He defended our people and our country for years by putting his life in danger! As an answer to those accusations, he would say, “A true pious Muslim cannot be a terrorist, and a bloodthirsty terrorist cannot be a truly pious Muslim”.
Even though he was distraught by all those accusations, he wouldn’t dare curse those who persecuted him; instead, he prayed from the bottom of his heart that Almighty would make things right for every one of us in the afterlife! I don’t hold grudges against anyone; I don’t even feel anger anymore. Allah is the owner and witness of everything. He tests us in many different ways. I believed from the very beginning that the virtuous ones have to face the most demanding tests. However, I’d never see myself among them. I hope my Lord will strengthen our faith and won’t let our feet slip from the righteous path.

HE LIVED THE DREAM OF BEING A MARTYR ALL HIS LIFE
May Allah grant us the opportunity to live as Muslims and die as Muslims. I witnessed the death of my beloved husband in a very tragic way. I hope he died as a martyr. While he was imprisoned, I did not neglect to see him even once for 21 months. I had to miss three visits because I was inside, too! I didn’t make him upset once while he was there.
Moreover, I supported him with all his needs. For all the time he was inside, I tried to stay positive and share the good sides of our life without him, for I wouldn’t dare to trouble him anymore! Even if I would, what could he possibly do to help or support us from inside? When he finally got out, he saw our misery as it was and naturally, he got frustrated. However, he appreciated my good intentions, and he added, “Maybe the imprisoned ones are luckier than their families who are left alone with all those burdens of the sober life. We were simply doing nothing but practising our faith without any worldly concerns. (There were and still are some brothers and sisters held in cells where they are tortured and arbitrarily treated, and those were exceptions, of course!)
We never felt depressed because we lived away from the world’s preoccupations and experienced spiritual beauties within those walls. He even once said to me that he wouldn’t go out if it were him. When I resented his words, he said, “I always longed for you and the kids, of course.”
Then he added: “May Allah grant us the same as good end as our deceased brothers and sisters who were the luckiest,” I said, “Oh dear, do your prayer properly, it might come true”, but then I got curious and asked, “Well, why were they lucky?” He said: “There is a possibility that those who died in times of oppression may become martyrs.” So my eternal husband, my dear Habib, has lived with the dream of being a martyr all his life and InsAllah, he is now among them!

HE HAD SPECIAL CAMOUFLAGE CLOTHES ON HIM ON THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT
If anyone hasn’t watched it yet, the video of the dreadful car accident is available on the internet. He was wearing a kind of special operations camouflage gear. He was in love with his profession. Unfortunately, he lost his life in an unfortunate way. Doctors could not stop the blood after all those broken bones. His heart stopped working at different intervals before it stopped for good. He bled for 17 hours. I often went to the intensive care unit with my children; he never came to his senses; I called his name for hours, but he couldn’t come back. If I were him, I wouldn’t choose to come back either! Living in this cruel world, would he expect any better? But, on the other hand, being in paradise was the ultimate goal of our life anyway…
As soon as I heard about the accident, I rushed to the hospital and never left his side until he gave his last breath. Even then, I tried to hold myself together. I didn’t shout or cry loudly. But I wept inside, and I know I will never forget him, and his loss will burn my soul until we meet again! His body is gone, but his legacy still lives on!
I hope that the good deeds done by the fellow brothers and sisters will be counted as his merits as well.
There are still many things to say, and I feel relieved when I talk to you, but that’s all for now. I do really appreciate your time and your prayers.