Police detain 15 new suspects in university student murder probe

TUNCELİ

Turkish police detained 15 suspects across five provinces on July 21, including a former governor’s wife, widening a murder probe into university student Gülistan Doku who vanished in 2020.

The coordinated dawn raids targeted individuals in Elazığ, Malatya, Ankara, Istanbul and Tunceli. Among those taken into custody were Handan Sonel, the wife of jailed former Tunceli Governor Tuncay Sonel, several medical professionals and an IT company owner suspected of tampering with Doku’s mobile phone.

Gülistan Doku went missing on Jan. 5, 2020. Authorities officially reclassified her disappearance as a homicide following a review of over 700 hours of surveillance footage. The investigation previously resulted in the incarceration of the former governor and his son, alongside Doku’s former boyfriend Zeinal Abarakov, on charges ranging from intentional murder to destroying criminal evidence.

The unresolved case has triggered nationwide outrage over the years, leading women’s rights groups to frequently stage rallies demanding judicial transparency.

Concurrently, an immigration court in the United States is scheduled to hold a hearing on July 21 for fugitive suspect Umut Altaş, who faces an Interpol red notice. Meanwhile, a specialized 30-person unit utilizing ground-penetrating radar continues to comb a 100-kilometer area in search of Doku’s remains, though the efforts have yet to turn up any evidence.