GÜLEÇ JUDGMENT OF 27 JULY 1998 (h) 17 Nazım Ayhan (gendarmerie warrant-officer at the material time and driver of the Condor vehicle) 37. Mr Ayhan stated that the commanding officer of İdil gendarmerie was Major Karatan. The second in command was a lieutenant and he was third in rank. He remembered that on the day of the incident, at 7.30 a.m., he had received a telephone call informing him that there was an unauthorised demonstration in town. He had gone round to the office of the İdil District Commissioner. The head of the security police and the gendarmerie commander had also been present. The crowd of demonstrators was coming towards the centre of town from the district behind the town hall and the immigrant districts. Mr Ayhan had ordered his men not to intervene. By then, the crowd was 3,500 strong. At that point, the Condor armoured vehicle was standing near the gendarmes’ quarters, with a view to preventing any attack on them. It was parked in a narrow lane 50 metres from the main street where the demonstration was taking place. On the order of a young man whose face was masked, the crowd had begun to advance, chanting slogans like “Up the PKK”. They were heading for the centre of town. At that moment handgun shots had been heard coming from the crowd. Shots had also been fired at the security forces from the surrounding alleys and roofs of houses. The Condor had not moved. At some point, the district gendarmerie commander (Major Karatan) had informed him by walkie-talkie that the demonstrators were attacking the school where his wife was teaching. The PKK militants were demanding that she be handed over to them. The commander had ordered Mr Ayhan to go and get his wife from the school. In order to get to the school, the Condor, driven by Mr Ayhan, had turned left into the main street, towards the centre of town, then took the first street on the right, which ran alongside the school. In that narrow street Mr Ayhan had fired two or three times in the air in order to gain the demonstrators’ attention. Shots were being fired at the vehicle from all sides. The windows of the school and of the adult education centre had been broken by stones. The Condor had been driven towards the demonstrators in order to disperse them, and a second armoured vehicle (a Land Rover) had succeeded in picking up the commander’s wife at the other entrance to the school and getting her away from the scene. The Condor had then returned to its position near the gendarmes’ quarters. Ten or fifteen minutes later Mr Ayhan had been informed by walkie-talkie that Lieutenant Ersöz was requesting assistance. He had started out for the infantry regiment barracks in the Condor. He had to go through the centre of town. In the middle of the main street, between the baker’s and the post