Hüsamettin Uğur, a former member of Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals who has been isolated in a one-person cell in a Kırıkkale prison since a failed coup in July 2016, was beaten by four guards in a room without cameras, the TR724 news website reported on Monday.
The incident, which took place on Feb. 17, was revealed by Hüsamettin Uğur’s daughter, Nalan Dilara Uğur, on social media.
“He was summoned to a meeting with the head guard despite not having requested one. He was beaten and verbally threatened by four guards in a room without cameras,” Nalan Dilara Uğur tweeted. “When they left him alone after he collapsed on the ground, they said, ‘Only your dead body will leave here’.”
After the coup attempt in July 2016, Turkey disbarred some 4,500 judges and prosecutors and imprisoned many of them over their alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, which the Turkish government accuses of orchestrating the abortive putsch. The movement strongly denies any involvement.
Nalan Dilara Uğur further revealed that the guards subsequently forged a medical report suggesting that it was Hüsamettin Uğur who attacked them so that he cannot file a criminal complaint.
“I chose to tell all this from here [on social media] since there is no justice in the country, my father is held captive and his petitions are swept under the rug,” she said.
She also said the prison administration has started coming up with flimsy excuses to confiscate the letters between her and her father.
“Despite the fact that the letters were found to be ‘partially improper,’ they were not handed over to my father with the improper parts blacked out, as required by law.”
The prison administrators also verbally threatened Hüsamettin Uğur, stating that they had ‘declared war on him’ and that his daughter ‘should be careful,’ according to Nalan Dilara Uğur.