Turkish police: Victim’s lost eye his own fault

İsmail Saymaz ISTANBUL

Volkan Kesanbilici was wounded last year on May 31 on Tarlabaşı Boulevard during the Gezi Park protests.

The Turkish police force has defended itself in a lawsuit from a victim who lost an eye due to a plastic bullet shot from a police panzer during last year’s Gezi Park incidents, stating it was the victim’s own fault.

Volkan Kesanbilici, a 38-year-old stationary owner, was wounded last year on May 31 on Tarlabaşı Boulevard during the Gezi Park protests, when a plastic bullet shot from an armored police vehicle hit his left eye, resulting in its loss. Ball-shaped shards from a plastic bullet were taken out of his eye after the incident. While after 15 months no police officers were identified as suspects, Kesanbilici’s lawyers filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Interior.

In its defense, the police department said Kesanbilici lost his eye due to his own faults. Responding to the evidence of pieces of the plastic bullet taken out of the victim’s eye, handed over to the office of the public prosecutor, the police said, “We do not have plastic bullets that have balls in them.”

There were no plastic bullets with balls inside of them in the police department’s inventory, the defense said, adding that there was no evidence that the plaintiff was actually wounded by a plastic bullet, other than his own claims.