Detained soldier misses son’s funeral due to escape fears

BALIKESİR - Doğan News Agency

Dönmez embraces his daughter. DHA Photo

A lieutenant colonel detained as part of the ongoing Ergenekon coup-plot case missed his son’s funeral on Sept. 3 after authorities reportedly refused to permit him to travel by sea for the ceremony for fear that he could make an easy escape, Doğan news agency reported.
 
Mustafa Dönmez, who learned of the death of his son, Alp Kaan Dönmez, while he was at a recent hearing, was given four days off – including two for travel – to attend the funeral in the Marmara province of Balıkesir’s Bandırma district.
 
The arrested soldier, however, was prevented from using a ferry to cross the Marmara Sea from Istanbul to Bandırma for the funeral on Sept. 3 on the grounds that he could escape, meaning that authorities drove him the seven hours around the sea.
 
Dönmez did not arrive in time for the ceremony and was only able to see his 22-year-old son’s face for the last time at the graveyard, as the participants in the funeral had waited for the father’s arrival before interring the body.
 
Alp Kaan Dönmez, a Boğaziçi University student that was conducting a summer internship program in Baku, was hit and killed by a vehicle while crossing the road in the Azerbaijani capital.
 
The Ergenekon case is investigating an alleged ultranationalist gang accused of planning to topple the government in a military coup.