Athens, Greece – As noted in his autopsy, 30-year-old Baris Buyuksu had several tattoos.
On the inside of his left arm was the invocation “be patient” in Turkish. On the outside of the left hand, the Turkish word for “hope”.
Hope is a word that aptly describes him, his sister Dilan Biyik told Al Jazeera. He was also optimistic.
Although he found it difficult to find stable work in Turkey, Buyuksu, a Turkish citizen of Kurdish descent, was always eager. He spoke often about trying to build a future for himself outside the country.
“He wanted to settle in Europe and build a new life there. He wanted to get a residence permit and live there,” Biyik told Al Jazeera.
On September 27, 2022, he made a surprise video call to his family from the Greek island of Kos, an idyllic tourist spot home to around 40,000 people. He arrived in Europe without being intercepted by the Greek coast guard.
“We didn’t know he was going that day,” his sister said.
She often spoke to her brother via video call while he was in Kos. He stayed there for 23 days, spending time with a childhood friend, Ali Safak Polat.
“He called us almost every day. We were worried,” she said.
But he remained positive, smiling broadly on calls from the main city of Kos.
“He kept telling us everything was going to be okay.”
On October 20, Buyuksu told his sister that he was going to take a ferry to Athens.
But the next day, Polat called Biyik and said her brother never made it onto the ferry to Athens. He was detained by Greek police and placed in a black van at the port, Polat said. Neither of them heard from Buyuksu again.
About 10 days later, the Mugla police station in eastern Turkey called, asking Buyuksu’s relatives to identify his body.
The Turkish coast guard found him barely alive in an inflatable lifeboat, adrift about five kilometers southwest of the Turkish city of Bodrum.
Beneath his tattoos, bruises swelled and spread across his neck, back and face.
The lifeboat was filled with 15 other people, all Palestinian refugees. Several members of the group had similar bruises and wounds. One of them had a broken arm. Buyuksu died before they reached the Turkish coast.
Lawyers in Greece and Turkey and the Bodrum Public Prosecutor’s Office allege that Buyuksu was illegally expelled from Kos. They say he was yet another victim of violent and illegal expulsions taking place at Europe’s borders.
Biyik also blames Greece and calls his brother’s death a “murder”.
“Every refugee who ‘violates’ the borders is a criminal in their eyes and they think they have the right to do anything to them,” she said. “They kill people in a very cold way and throw them into the Aegean Sea. There is no more space in our country’s cemeteries where the bodies of unidentified refugees are buried.”
Greece says it does not engage in illegal pushbacks along its borders. However, the practice has been documented many times through testimonies, videos and geolocation. It has been criticized by human rights groups, the Council of Europe, the International Organization for Migration, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants and the UNHCR.
The Turkish coast guard said Buyuksu was pronounced dead at around 5:20 am.
The Hellenic Coast Guard did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment on the allegations.
Palestinians who were in the lifeboat with Buyuksu later told Turkish authorities that upon reaching Kos they were met by people they identified as “Greek soldiers” and detained. They said they were stripped naked, had their phones and valuables stolen and beaten for hours. They said they heard someone shouting in Turkish in an adjacent room.
Al Jazeera analyzed leaked documents from the Bodrum Prosecutor General’s Office that contained worrying statements from Palestinian refugees.
“From what we heard, they were using violence and beating this person. The sounds of the Turkish citizen suffering and screaming reached the room we were in. Furthermore, from what I could understand from the sounds, the [Turkish citizen] he was being tortured by electrocution,” said one of them. “I could hear the sounds of the device used to supply electricity. They continued the torture throughout the night.”
The Palestinians said that in the early hours of the morning they were taken to the sea, along with Buyuksu. They claim they were forcibly loaded onto a Hellenic Coast Guard boat. At sea, they watched the coast guard inflate a life raft. All 16 people were thrown one by one onto the raft and abandoned in the Aegean Sea, they said.
Investigation into Buyuksu’s death
More than two years after his death, Buyuksu’s family and lawyers say they still have no information on whether Greece has opened an investigation.
Spanish newspaper El Pais, which reported on the incident in December, said Buyuksu’s legal team fears that neither Greece nor Turkey, countries that have long had political disputes, want the case to move forward as they are enjoying good times. relations.
An autopsy carried out by the Turkish Ministry of Justice’s Institute of Forensic Medicine and reviewed by Al Jazeera concluded that Buyuksu died as a “result of extensive intra-mole bleeding, together with multiple rib fractures due to general trauma to the body”.
“It is unanimously agreed that there is a causal link between the exposed trauma and his death, and that there is no other common cause of death,” the report states.
The Bodrum Public Prosecutor’s Office sent a request to the Greek Judicial Authority for assistance in investigating the death in January 2023. According to documents reviewed by Al Jazeera, as of July 2023, they had not received a response.
In November, legal organizations in Turkey and Greece – the Association of Progressive Lawyers and the Lesvos Legal Center – published a declaration demanding information from Greece on the status of an investigation.
In Greece, the preliminary stages of such an investigation would be conducted by judges who would make a recommendation to the prosecutor regarding the need for a full investigation.
“A preliminary investigation is probably underway in Greece, but we have not been officially informed,” said Vicky Aggelidou, a lawyer at the Lesvos Legal Center. “This was another illegal land take, like many others we monitor. I hope that the investigation continues and that charges are brought against the Greek Coast Guard.”
At the time of publication, the Greek Ministry of Justice had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
After spending years consulting human rights groups and lawyers, Biyik is running out of hope.
“I couldn’t even feel my pain because we are constantly fighting for justice,” she said. “After my brother’s perpetrators are found and punished, I can begin to grieve.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
