Murat Tekin was among the military students who were taken from their camp in Yalova and taken to the Istanbul Bosphorus Bridge on the evening of 15 July 2016. On the morning of that night, he dropped his weapon and went into the crowd, where he was brutally murdered with skewers, sticks, and iron rods. His killers have been pardoned, his death has not been investigated, it has been covered up.
Murat Tekin spent the last Ramadan holiday with his family at their house in Bornova, Izmir. Tekin, who was among the students who were taken to Yalova to attend the 1.5-month summer camp, was in the group brought to the Bosphorus Bridge in the early hours of 16 July. They were asked by their commanders to open fire on the people, saying, “There is a suicide bomber among them.” However, he dropped his weapon and went into the crowd, where he was brutally murdered with skewers, sticks, and iron rods. His unrecognizable body was barely identified by his family 10 days later at the Yenibosna Forensic Medicine Morgue.
On the evening of July 15, Murat Tekin, like his other cadet friends, was brought to the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul by order of his commanders. He was murdered there on the morning of that night. The family was able to bring Murat Tekin’s funeral to Izmir by Turkish Airlines cargo plane. The funeral was not accepted to the mosque, the prayer was not recited. Telling about their experiences to Cumhuriyet newspaper at that time (October 15, 2016), mother Sevkiye Tekin and father Sedat Tekin repeatedly asked the Izmir Governorate and judicial authorities to find and punish the killers and give their son martyrdom. However, as the requests for an investigation were ignored and the events were covered up, amnesty was granted to those responsible.
Mother Sevkiye Tekin, in an interview with Cumhuriyet, said that she last met her son on the evening of July 13, the last words she heard from Murat were “Mom, tomorrow we are going to Yalova by ship to the summer camp. Don’t worry if my phone is turned off”. Although she constantly watched the events on TV on July 15 and the following 3 evenings, she said that she did not think anything bad could happen to her son, who she knew was in Yalova.
‘WE KNOW FROM THE NAIL…’
The mother of another military school student phoned her. Thus, the mother Sevkiye Tekin, who started to become suspicious, told the following: “My brother in Istanbul said, ‘Don’t come here, it’s very confusing.’ Can the mother’s heart stop? My husband and I started researching from Yalova. He’s not here. We came to Istanbul. We’ve looked everywhere from the Military Academy to the police station. Then we went to his school again. They said, “The people you have delivered are traitors, and we cannot give information.” I said, ’I’m not leaving without information’. ’There is no commander left, we cannot give information,’ they said. We checked the hospitals, the Silivri Prison, no, no, no… Before returning to Izmir, we wanted to take a last look at Forensic Medicine. My brother and my wife left, I stayed at home. They saw my son’s lifeless body there, but they didn’t recognize him. My husband thought his hair was similar. I said to my brother, ‘When Murat was worried, he was gnawing the middle of his thumb, there was a hollow left. Look at his finger’. That’s how they identified him. I’d tell him not to eat his fingernails. And he would say, ’Maybe I’ll become a martyr, you’ll know me from there’. That’s what happened.”
AND THE MOSQUES DIDN’T EVEN PRAY FOR HIM
Mother Sevkiye Tekin said that the point that injured them the most was that their son’s funeral was not accepted to the mosque and the mosques in Osmangazi did not pray for Murat. After bringing the funeral to Izmir on THY’s cargo plane, she told that they had a new and deep shock: “My husband, my friends, the whole neighborhood were there. Of course, I didn’t realize it at the time because I was in shock, I found out later. He was not admitted to the mosque, my son. They didn’t pray for him. Our child is dead, they didn’t even pray. As a Muslim family, we are very worn out. As our neighbors know, we are a family that is devoted to our state and belief and stand on our own feet’.
Baba Sedat Tekin pointed out that there were those who branded themselves “the family of the traitor” even though they could not say it against their faces in that interview and added: “We had been labeled even though we are people against terrorism. It was more pain than our pain. I’m sure my child is not comfortable there either, neither are we. All I want from our state is for those who did this to be revealed. We want the commanders who took our children to the Bosphorus bridge that night as a drill, and those who did not protect them and left them in the crowd and had them lynched, to be held accountable. I only ask our elders and our state to hear us. Let them reach out to us somehow. Other military school students who are in prisons are also innocent, sinless. May they be acquitted somehow. Don’t let them fall into the hands of those traitors again. Ours is gone, he’s not coming back. But at least let my child be given martyrdom”.
‘DON’T LET MOM GET UPSET, I BECAME A MARTYR…’
Mother Sevkiye Tekin said that they received the funeral while making preparations for Murat’s marriage and said: “We would wish him to get married after 2 years when he finished school and got his appointment, we were making plans so that he wouldn’t be alone. Unfortunately, we had to spend the wedding money on his funeral. Such was his fate… I didn’t give him ill-gotten milk, I didn’t teach him bad morals. If he was a bad person, he wouldn’t have gone there in public. God gave the rank of martyrdom. He entered his sister’s dream and said, ‘Tell my mother not to be upset, I am a martyr’. I know what my son is.”
‘HE WAS TORN TO PIECES, MY CHILD…’
Father Sedat Tekin also described his Forensic Medicine moments with tears in his eyes: “First they showed the photograph. I made my child’s body open completely. He was unrecognizable. I recognized it from the holllow in his fingernail. He also had 3 moles on his face. That’s how I recognized him. And then his hair and feet started to look familiar. It was unbearable. My child who was cut into pieces with sharp tools and sticks. Cruel people with sticks and irons brutally slaughtered our children. Why such a terrible death? My child doesn’t know why he died right now.” Father Tekin stressed that they filed a petition to the Izmir Governorate and filed a criminal complaint against those who committed the massacre and those responsible for the coup.
‘THEY THREATENED AND SAID: WE CUT HIM OFF’
Tekin’s older sister Mehtap Tekin was a guest of Tele1 television on July 19, 2019. ”I will continue to stand up for my brother,” Tekin said, explaining that there were people who texted hER that they had killed her brother, noting that no legal action had been taken against these people.
Mehtap Tekin told the following:
“My brother studied at Bursa Isiklar Air High School for 5 years and then transferred to the Air Force Academy. They go to camp there every year, he went to a military camp in Yalova. Some commanders there take them to the Bosphorus Bridge for various reasons, such as drills or suicide bombers. My brother and none of the other privates know about any of this. And while I’ve been dealing with this, a lot of killers have been writing to me for three years, and we’ve sued it. The case was closed three times, so our lawyers are also dealing with this, but as you can see today, a person named Yusuf Tosun himself admits that he is the murderer. That’s how he texted me a message. Before that, a person named Musa Mert Kaya encourages him, in fact, this person sends me a message. In the message he said: ‘I was one of those who lynched the soldiers that morning. I didn’t get my ambition. I still had to kill them all’. We reacted to it. After this reaction, this person named Yusuf Tosun sent a message. He said: ‘I cut off the soldier.”

“EVEN THOUGH THERE IS A REPORT, IT IS SAID THAT ’THE SOLDIER WAS NOT CUT OFF’”
I want to call everyone from here. We have a forensic report for those who say that the soldiers were not cut off. We have a few pages of reports. Although there are reports here, they already deny it. Children are being taken here from Yalova for military exercises. These are the privates who have already surrendered. We were also not given martyrdom in any way. We gave up martyrdom, but the murderer was not prosecuted. There is a psychological pressure on me in particular. I have been fighting on my own for three years and I am used to these insults, but I can not bear injustice done to my brother.

“I’M RECEIVING MESSAGES THAT THEY’RE FROM ISIS”
These names, I’m sure, are really to blame. After this person wrote to me, some people wrote to me, I received messages from Azerbaijan that he was from ISIS, that he came from Iraq and Syria in this way. Let those killers come to me, I can’t do the same thing, because it’s a matter of conscience. There are those who protect themselves politically behind them, but they are protected by decree laws. But they also have invisible bodyguards. We will go to the ECHR, I will not let this case go. There are a lot of military students who are innocent in Silivri Prison, we know very well that they are all innocent. One day it will happen, and it will be accounted for, and his killers know it very well. My brother always told me to stand up straight if he became a martyr, I will stand up straight and I will fight, that’s my last word”.
AMNESTY FOR MURDERERS BY DECREE LAW, NON-PROSECUTION FROM THE PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE
The 2016 criminal complaint against Tekin’s killers was concluded on February 22, 2019, citing the decree-law (Decree-Law), which granted impunity to civilians who suppressed the coup attempt. The Istanbul Anadolu prosecutor’s office decided that ‘There is no room for prosecution’, citing the relevant articles of the criminal laws and the European Convention on Human Rights, which include ‘self-defense’, as well as the Decree Law issued last year, according to the Cumhuriyet’s Yusuf Ozkan.
Sister Mehtap Tekin, who has been calling for justice for her brother for many years, announced that they had just lived on January 25, 2021 via social media. Sister Mehtap Tekin explained that this time they were in a difficult situation due to the compensation, even their vehicles were confiscated. She explained that the state is asking them for compensation together with interest. Tekin said, “You have taken my brother’s life, what more do you want, let us experience our pain’.
SOURCES:
https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/koprude-linc-edilen-askeri-ogrencinin-ailesi-sopalarla-parca-parca-edilmis-616461
-https://www.diken.com.tr/gerekce-darbeyi-bastiran-sivillere-ceza-muafiyeti-linc-edilen-harbiyelinin-katillerine-takipsizlik/
https://tele1.com.tr/koprude-oldurulen-askeri-okul-ogrencisinin-ablasi-mehtap-tekin-tele1e-konustu-68473/
https://kronos34.news/tr/devlet-15-temmuzda-katledilen-harbiyeli-murat-tekinin-ailesinden-mala-zarar-verme-tazminati-istedi/