Sixteen-month-old Mehmet Uytun was seriously injured on 9 October 2009 when a gas canister struck him in the head while he was in his mother’s arms on the balcony of their home in Cizre, Şırnak. He died after spending 10 days in intensive care at Diyarbakır State Hospital. Following the incident, the Şırnak Governor’s Office announced that Mehmet Uytun was injured as a result of stones thrown by demonstrators.
In the crime scene investigation report prepared by the Cizre Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on 10 October 2009, it was stated that an empty red gas canister cartridge was found at the scene. The gendarmerie team that arrived at the scene had only one weapon capable of firing gas cartridges. Its ammunition was unloaded and photographed together with the cartridge found at the scene for comparison purposes.
Gendarmerie Staff Sergeant Hakan Alkan, in his statement given on 3 November 2009, said that they went to the scene to take security measures around the tax office and that he was assigned because there was no other gendarmerie personnel available who could use the 40 mm revolving grenade launcher. Alkan stated that, when a masked group threw stones at the tax office and the residential buildings, he fired a gas grenade on the orders of his superior, aiming at the wall to the left of the group. He said that the ammunition hit the wall and fell to the ground and that he used only one gas munition on the day of the incident. He maintained that the red cartridge found at the scene did not belong to the ammunition he used and that the ammunition assigned to him was grey in colour. Gendarmerie personnel whose statements were taken on 6 February 2010 gave similar accounts. In a letter dated 3 March 2010, the Cizre District Gendarmerie Command stated that red-coloured ammunition was not included in the gendarmerie inventory.
In its report dated 23 February 2012, the Forensic Medicine Institute stated that Mehmet Uytun’s death resulted from a skull fracture caused by blunt head trauma, intracranial bleeding, and ensuing complications.
The Cizre Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office considered the use of the gas grenade by Hakan Alkan to have occurred in the course of his duty and therefore requested authorization to investigate from the Cizre District Governor’s Office on 17 July 2012. On 31 August 2012, the District Governor’s Office refused to grant authorization for an investigation on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence. The objections filed by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and the lawyer for the complainant were dismissed by the Diyarbakır Regional Administrative Court on 4 December 2012.
Following this, the Uytun family applied to the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court ruled that the procedural aspect of the right to life was violated due to the failure to conduct an effective investigation into the incident. Following this ruling, the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office again requested authorization to investigate on 15 May 2019. After the Cizre District Governor’s Office again refused to grant authorization on 21 September 2019, the family filed an objection, and the Gaziantep Regional Administrative Court definitively upheld the objection. Following this process, Hakan Alkan was able to give a statement as a suspect. During the site inspection conducted on 3 October 2018, it was established that both the tax office and the house where Mehmet Uytun was located on the day of the incident had been demolished.
On 26 October 2020, the Cizre Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office prepared an indictment against Hakan Alkan. The indictment stated that Alkan caused Mehmet Uytun’s death by firing the revolving grenade launcher assigned to him in the course of his duty in a careless and imprudent manner.
At the first hearing of the case before the Cizre 1st Criminal Court of First Instance on 8 February 2021, Mehmet Uytun’s mother and father were heard. His father, Turan Uytun, stated that there was no crowd or demonstration in the area at the time of the incident, that his son went out onto the balcony and his mother followed him, and that shortly afterwards he heard his wife screaming. He said that when he went onto the balcony, he found his wife and son lying on the ground. He stated that the area was filled with smoke and that blood was coming from Mehmet’s head. His mother, Kevzer Uytun, stated that immediately after taking Mehmet into her arms on the balcony, the child’s head fell onto her shoulder, the area became filled with smoke, and blood was coming from Mehmet’s head.
The lawyers for the complainants argued that, considering the characteristics of the weapon used by the defendant and the manner in which it was fired, the act should be assessed as intentional killing with either direct intent or possible intent, and requested that the case be transferred to the Assize Court. They also requested a site inspection, an investigation into whether there was any demonstration on the day of the incident, an investigation into how the red cartridge could have entered the gendarmerie inventory, identification of the weapon and ammunition assigned to the defendant, and an examination of camera recordings. They also requested that a criminal complaint be filed against those who destroyed the red gas cartridge in the judicial evidence storage facility because the cartridge in the case file was destroyed. The court rejected the requests concerning lack of jurisdiction, detention, and a site inspection, and ordered an investigation into whether any camera recordings from the date of the incident existed.
At the second hearing on 7 June 2021, the requests by the lawyers for the intervening parties to transfer the case to the Assize Court, to investigate the effect that a gas cartridge would have on the human body, to file a criminal complaint against those who destroyed the cartridge, and to investigate whether a public disturbance had occurred on the day of the incident were rejected. In the prosecutor’s opinion on the merits, the public prosecutor requested that the defendant be convicted of causing death through negligence, stating that Alkan fired a gas gun toward the area where the residences were located, that the cartridge ricocheted off the wall and struck Mehmet Uytun in the head, and that his death occurred as a result.
At the hearing on 21 June 2021, the Cizre 1st Criminal Court of First Instance convicted Hakan Alkan of causing death through negligence and sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment, which was converted into a judicial fine of TRY 18,200.
Following an appeal, this judgment was overturned. The decision stated that it should be investigated whether the red cartridge could have been transferred from the Land Forces inventory to the Gendarmerie and, if such a transfer took place, whether it was documented; that an expert witness should be asked to determine the temperature reached by a gas cartridge of the same type after being fired and whether it could cause a burn mark on a person; and that contradictions in the witness statements should be resolved.
In the proceedings following the reversal, the Ministry of National Defence stated that the transfer of ammunition between the Land Forces and the Gendarmerie was possible but required the Ministry’s approval and documentation, that the ammunition in question was included in the Land Forces inventory, but that there was no record showing that it was transferred to the General Command of the Gendarmerie. One of the witnesses who was heard again on 16 February 2023 stated that the police and soldiers fired gas cartridges toward the direction where the demonstrators were located and that the balcony where Mehmet Uytun was located was on the trajectory where the cartridges could have struck.
In a report by the Forensic Medicine Institute submitted to the case file before the hearing on 2 May 2023, it was stated that Mehmet Uytun’s death should be accepted as having resulted from a skull fracture, intracranial bleeding, brain tissue damage, and ensuing complications that could have been caused by the impact of gas canister ammunition.
On 11 May 2023, the Cizre 1st Criminal Court of First Instance issued a lack-of-jurisdiction decision, holding that it was for the Assize Court to assess whether the act constituted intentional killing with possible intent. However, following objections by defence counsel and the prosecution, the Cizre 2nd Assize Court overturned this decision on 21 June 2023 and ruled that the proceedings should continue before the Criminal Court of First Instance.
On 14 September 2023, the Cizre 1st Criminal Court of First Instance found that Hakan Alkan committed the offence of causing death through negligence and sentenced him to three years and four months’ imprisonment on the grounds that he fired the revolving grenade launcher assigned to him in the course of his duty in a careless and imprudent manner.
On 21 February 2024, the 3rd Criminal Chamber of the Diyarbakır Regional Court of Appeal also overturned this judgment due to insufficient investigation. In the proceedings that followed, the court ordered a test to be conducted under similar conditions using the same type of ammunition as that used in the incident. However, letters received from the Turkish Armed Forces and the General Command of the Gendarmerie stated that the ammunition in question was not available in the inventory. The court therefore requested a report from the Ankara Gendarmerie Criminal Laboratory Directorate to reassess whether the red cartridge obtained from the scene was fired from the weapon kept in judicial evidence storage and whether it could cause a burn mark if it struck a person. The request by the lawyers for the intervening parties for a site inspection was rejected.
At the hearing on 31 March 2026, the public prosecutor stated that it had been established that Hakan Alkan, who was not authorized to use a gas cartridge, fired the gas gun in an attempt to suppress the events and that the cartridge struck Mehmet Uytun in the head, causing his death. The prosecutor therefore requested that the defendant be convicted of causing death through negligence.
At the hearing on 11 June 2026, the prosecution repeated the same opinion. The Cizre 1st Criminal Court of First Instance, however, acquitted Hakan Alkan on the grounds that it was not established that he committed the alleged act.