The prosecutor’s office in charge of the investigation into the horrific crime of Narin Güran, the eight-year-old girl who disappeared on 21 August and whose body was found hidden in a river on 8 September after being strangled, has requested life imprisonment without parole for three members of the girl’s family, including her own mother, who are accused of ‘voluntary manslaughter’ and of collaborating both in the murder itself and in concealing the crime, whose real motivations – apart from the hypotheses being worked out by the police – remain a mystery for now.
According to Turkish media reports, the 12-page indictment filed by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Diyarbakır – the province where the crime was committed – following the police investigation, calls for a life sentence for Narin’s mother, Yüksel Güran, for her older brother Enes Güran (aged 18), for her uncle Salim Güran, and for one of the neighbours of the village where the girl lived (Tavşantepe), Nevzat Bahtiyar, to whom her uncle Salim allegedly gave the body for disposal and then threw it into a river.
The findings of the investigation completed by the prosecution have determined, thanks to the records of the position of their mobile phones, that at the time of the murder the 4 main accused were in the house where the girl lived, so everything points to the fact that they acted jointly. Until now, the three relatives of the girl in remand – her uncle (the main accused as the perpetrator), her mother and her older brother – have persistently denied their involvement in the crime, but Nevzat Bahtiyar’s confession has revealed that it was Narin’s uncle Salim who handed the body to Bahtiyar to get rid of it, telling him that he had killed her.
New revelations about the murder
According to the 12-page document submitted by the prosecution, it was one of Narin’s brothers, Baran Güran, who first alerted the authorities that the girl was missing at around 20:43 on the day of her disappearance with a call to 112. However, as search operations were underway in the area the next day, Muhammed Kaya, a cousin of Narin, said he ‘found a girl’s red slippers near the tents where the Syrian migrants were staying, but said he forgot to notify the security forces,’ the prosecution explains in the document. ‘The family members said that the slippers belonged to Narin Güran without even asking for the number, and tried to direct the investigation towards Syrians living in the area working in the fields,’ the prosecutor’s office adds.
However, the investigation does not clarify the motive behind Narin’s murder, with the prosecutor merely stating that the defendants ‘tried to control the act of murder, having strangled Narin Güran to death for an undetermined motive and intention’, although in later confessions one of the defendants, Nevzat Bahtiyar, said that Salim handed him the body saying ‘I have killed this girl because she saw that I had a relationship with Yüksel (her mother). Now you are my accomplice, you are a witness’.
Precisely the fact that Narin’s uncle, Salim Güran (her father’s brother), was the village head (muhtar) of the village of Tavşantepe, led him to use his authority to try to learn about the progress of the investigation while the girl was wanted and to try to interfere in it; but his behaviour quickly aroused suspicion, according to the prosecutor’s office, which also points out the multiple contradictions in the statements of Narin’s family about the time the girl disappeared and was last seen, which immediately led the gendarmerie to approach the case not as a disappearance, but as a crime involving the child’s family.
The document presented by the prosecutor also notes that at around 21:00 hours on 24 August – only 3 days after Narin’s disappearance – a fire broke out in Tavşantepe without any clear reasons as to its causes, so that taking into account that the weather conditions were calm and that several members of Narin’s family were in the vicinity of the fire, it was concluded that it had been set in an attempt to distract and hinder the search for the girl, whose body would appear on 8 September in a river near the village.
The fact that most of the inhabitants of the village where Narin lived had some degree of kinship, that she was last seen – according to CCTV footage – very close to her home, and that no strangers or vehicles from outside the village were recorded arriving in the village, were also factors that led investigators to believe from the outset that Narin’s family was involved in her murder.
Her family tried to hinder the investigation
As village head, Salim Güran – who was in charge of managing the family’s lands – was also the head of the family clan, and therefore led efforts from the beginning to obstruct the investigation and try to steer it towards false leads, even though it became clear to the security forces involved in the search for Narin that, on several occasions, Salim acted under a state of nervousness and anxiety.
Moreover, it should not be forgotten that the four main accused – his mother, older brother, uncle and Bahtiyar, the latter a neighbour and Salim’s employee – deleted all messages and call logs from their mobile phones after the crime without being able to justify the reason, which raised further suspicions and led to their phones and those of other family members being confiscated on 30 August for examination, carried out by a special gendarmerie unit specialised in cybercrime.
Already under suspicion, when Narin’s mother, Yüksel Güran, was being interrogated by a gendarme on 2 September, and it was suggested to her that giving as much information as possible would help find her daughter, even though the girl was still reported missing, ‘she acted as if she was practically certain that her daughter was dead. Although she was upset about her daughter, she was trying to protect her son Enes (one of the 4 accused). She was anxious and said things like ‘I want Narin to be found, what can I do for my son Enes’,’ the indictment states.
New evidence of the crime
Telecommunications records have established from the position of mobile phone signals that Salim Güran, the girl’s uncle and prime suspect in the murder, went to the river where the girl’s body was found shortly after it was dumped, which would corroborate not only that he knew that Narin’s body had been deposited there after he had given it to Bahtiyar – which he continues to deny – but also that he was trying to verify that the evidence of the crime had been concealed.
Salim in fact mentioned in his first statements that the girl had disappeared at around 15:00, but in the following days he changed his version to say that she disappeared at around 17:00 or 17:30, so as not to arouse suspicion. He was not the only one: although Narin’s body was found to have been abandoned in the Eğertutmaz river – 1.5 km from the village – on 21 August (the same day of her disappearance), contradictory statements from Narin’s family included mentions that they had seen the girl at 17:00, or even 18:40, which was completely impossible.
Moreover, according to the prosecution, Narin’s family members held ‘frequent meetings’ during the search operations, mentioning a discussion near the family home on the day Narin’s body was found, in which a cousin of Narin, Melike Güran, tells the crowd ‘We have not done anything’ to which an aunt of the girl replies ‘Everybody knows everything, don’t make me talk!’ addressing Melek Güran, Salim’s wife. Other women in the village said in that conversation things like ‘If you had told the truth, this would not have happened’, and there was shouting against Narin’s mother.
Throughout the search and investigation operations following the girl’s disappearance, reports from the security forces mention attempts by Narin’s relatives to follow the gendarmes and investigators in an attempt to listen to what they were saying, or to distract their attention. The document submitted by the Diyarbakır prosecutor’s office further draws attention to the fact that ‘it is inexplicable that the family reported to the authorities the disappearance of their daughter, who was last seen at 15:11 on the day of the incident, at 20:43’, almost 6 hours after not having heard from her all afternoon.
The prosecutor also points out about the crime that Narin Güran‘s father, Arif Güran, who has not been charged since it has been proven that he was out of town on the day of the murder, was not informed at any time by any family member – including his wife or children – about such a serious event as his daughter’s disappearance, to the extent that he learned about it hours later from a friend in a nearby village. ‘If one takes into account that it has been concluded that almost all members of the family deleted their WhatsApp conversations, messages and recordings from the day of the incident,’ the prosecution concludes, ’it has been proven beyond doubt that the family members were aware of what happened from the beginning, and that they made great efforts to prevent it from being discovered.’
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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