A cold case involving university student Gülistan Doku, who went missing in Turkey’s eastern Tünceli province in January 2020, has seen its first developments in nearly six years with 13 new arrests.
For years, Doku’s family has campaigned for justice even as the case went cold, with no new arrests or developments for years. Protests organized by the family resulted in arrests by authorities, and Doku’s lawyer was also the subject of an investigation in September 2020 on allegations he had violated his client’s right to privacy.
In February 2022, Doku’s family met with leaders of several political parties in an attempt to launch an investigation commission. The initiative, while supported by opposition parties at the time, was rejected with the votes of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and ruling coalition allies.
Among the 13 new arrests are Doku’s ex-boyfriend Zeinal Abakarov, as well as the son of the then-governor of Tünceli province Mustafa Türkay Sonel. Abakarov was briefly arrested on suspicion of her disappearance in March 2022 before being released shortly thereafter.
The revival of the investigation into Doku’s disappearance was done at the order of Turkey’s new Minister of Justice Akın Gürlek, who took office in February.
An anonymous note received by Doku’s lawyer containing a list of names as well as the discovery of deleted text messages in Abakarov’s phone have also reignited interest in the case.
Doku’s disappearance
Gülistan Doku, a second-year student in the child development department of Tünceli Munzur University, left her campus dormitory on January 4th, 2020, and did not return the following day. Noticing her absence, Doku’s friends contacted authorities and her family, and search efforts were launched on January 7th. Surveillance footage showed Doku boarding a minibus from Tünceli’s Atatürk neighborhood to the university on the day of her disappearance. The investigation also revealed that Doku had had an argument with her boyfriend the same day.
Media outlets at the time alleged Doku had died by suicide, an allegation rejected by her family. Requests by the family in 2020 for the detention of Abarakov as a suspect in the case were also unsuccessful.
Translated by Leo Kendrick for Medyascope
