A Turkish court has ordered five construction site workers jailed pending trial eight years after the death of a retired major general’s son, whose family says the case was first recorded as a suicide and later covered up with the help of politically connected figures, the T24 news website reported on Saturday.
The five men had been standing trial without detention at the İzmir 21st High Criminal Court on charges of intentional killing in the death of 26-year-old Dorukhan Büyükışık, whose body was found at a construction site in İzmir’s Narlıdere district on May 13, 2018.
The defendants are night guards Hüseyin Kaya, Hulusi Aras, Tayfun Çakmakçı and Ali Gülbaşı, and construction equipment operator Bilal Çelik. They worked at a housing project owned by Tanyer İnşaat, according to the indictment filed in June 2025.
The court issued arrest warrants for the five after prosecutors said new evidence obtained in the reopened investigation supported allegations of intentional killing, destruction, concealment or relocation of criminal evidence and false testimony.
The defendants were taken into custody Friday, brought before the court, informed of the warrants for them and questioned before being ordered jailed pending trial.
The decision marks the first time suspects accused of involvement in Büyükışık’s death have been put in pretrial detention since the case began eight years ago.
The development came as the gendarmerie continued questioning suspects detained in a separate operation launched under a Justice Ministry-backed review of the case. Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said Thursday that 26 detention warrants had been issued after new evidence, expert reports, technical examinations, call detail records and narrowed cell tower data indicated that evidence had been tampered with.
Gürlek said simultaneous operations were launched in nine provinces from İzmir under the coordination of the Justice Ministry’s Unsolved Crimes Investigation Department and the İzmir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The state-run Anadolu agency reported Thursday that 21 suspects had been detained in that operation.
Büyükışık’s body was found at the construction site of the Tanyer İnşaat, owned by the Tanyer family, which Turkish media outlets have described as close to the government. Authorities initially treated the death as suicide, but Büyükışık’s father, retired Maj. Gen. Ethem Büyükışık, spent years challenging that conclusion.
An indictment accepted in 2025 said Büyükışık did not die by suicide and was beaten to death at the Tanyer İnşaat construction site. Prosecutors sought aggravated life sentences for the five construction workers on murder charges.
The case has also raised questions about the conduct of police officers who handled the first investigation. A separate case against eight police officers accused of abuse of duty was later merged with the murder trial of the construction workers.
The allegations concerning the police included failures to secure camera footage, fingerprints, biological samples and cigarette butts found near the body.
In April the İzmir 1st Criminal Judgeship of Peace overturned a previous decision of non-prosecution concerning members of the Tanyer family, other suspects and police officers, clearing the way for a renewed investigation on allegations including murder and evidence tampering.
The case is among several unresolved or disputed death investigations recently revived under the Justice Ministry’s Unsolved Crimes Investigation Department. Gürlek said the unit has received hundreds of files from courts and provides technical support to prosecutors, while some Turkish commentators have described the sudden revival of long-stalled cases as part of broader power struggles within President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).