31 Deaths, Including 8 Suicides, Are Reported at Turkish Prison

A military prosecutor said Friday that 31 people have died over a four-year period, 14 of them by suicide or hunger strike, at a controversial prison in southeast Turkey.

The semi-official Anatolian news agency said he was responding to a Kurdish militant detained in Diyarbakir prison who at his trial Thursday said 32 inmates there had died as victims of torture or on hunger strike between 1981-84.

Although news reports of hunger strikes and complaints of ill treatment in Diyarbakir appeared at the time, the prosecutor’s announcement was the first to confirm any deaths.

Of the 32 people named by the Kurdish militant, the prosecutor said eight committed suicide and six died on hunger strike. Sixteen died of natural causes, one death was still being investigated and one of the 32 left the prison alive, he said.