Musa Anter Family Petitions Justice Ministry to Reopen 1992 Murder Case
RastinewsThe family of Musa Anter, the Kurdish journalist and writer killed in Diyarbakır in 1992, has petitioned the Justice Ministry to reopen the investigation into his murder. The petition calls for physical evidence to be re-examined using current forensic methods, for the archives of JİTEM and the State of Emergency Regional Governorate to be searched, and for documents on the MİT interrogation of Mahmut Yıldırım, code-named "Yeşil," to be added to the case file.
According to a report by Alican Uludağ for DW Turkish, the petition came after Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said unsolved political murder cases could be reassessed.
Anter was killed in an armed attack in Diyarbakır on 20 September 1992. Journalist and writer Orhan Miroğlu, who was with him at the time, was wounded.
Physical evidence should be re-examined
The investigation into the killing, unsolved for years, was reopened in 2012. In 2013, the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office filed charges against Mahmut Yıldırım, code-named "Yeşil"; PKK informant Abdulkadir Aygan; retired Colonel Savaş Gevrekçi; and Hamit Yıldırım, alleged to have been the gunman.
The case was later moved to Ankara for security reasons and merged with the main JİTEM trial. In 2022, Ankara's 6th High Criminal Court dropped the case, citing the expiration of the 30-year statute of limitations. The Court of Cassation upheld that ruling.
The family's petition states that the investigation and trial relied mainly on witness testimony, while physical evidence from the crime scene was never reassessed using advances in forensic technique.
A **"Preliminary Expert Assessment Report on the Musa Anter Murder," dated 5 July 2026**, attached to the petition, says shell casings, bullet fragments, firing trajectories, the chain of evidence and DNA samples could be re-analyzed with current methods.
JİTEM and state-of-emergency archives sought
The petition argues that examining the archives of JİTEM and other security bodies from that period is essential to solving the case.
It notes that JİTEM's personnel and duty records, along with the archives of the State of Emergency Regional Governorate, were never brought into the case file despite being requested during the trial. The petition points to allegations that several JİTEM members, including Mahmut Yıldırım, were assigned by the State of Emergency Regional Governorate, but says no official documents on this appear in the file.
MİT interrogation records also requested
The family is also asking that minutes, audio recordings and other documents from MİT's interrogation of fugitive defendant Mahmut Yıldırım be located and added to the case file.
The petition recalls that Mehmet Eymür, then head of MİT's Counter-Terrorism Department, testified in court that Yıldırım gave information about Anter's murder during his MİT interrogation. It notes that although roughly 100 pages of interrogation records were mentioned, they were never entered into the case file.
Lawyer Alınak: "This cannot be closed by a statute of limitations"
Bişar Abdi Alınak, the Anter family's lawyer, said unsolved political killings from the 1990s must be reexamined. "The Musa Anter file is not one that can be closed by a statute-of-limitations ruling," he said.
Alınak said the family is seeking a review of information and documents held in state archives, completion of gaps in the investigation, and a fresh assessment of existing physical evidence using current scientific methods.