ERGI JUDGMENT OF 28 JULY 1998 11 with commandos. NCO İsa Gündoğdu had arrived after the firing had stopped and, although he followed in the direction of the allegedly fleeing PKK, he had seen no sign of them. The Commission had requested the Government on two occasions prior to the hearing in Ankara to identify, for the purpose of taking evidence, gendarmerie officers who had been present during the operation. The Government had not responded. The Commission recalled that the applicant had not been in the village either and his testimony concerning the events of that night had been based on what he had remembered being told by members of his family or villagers. Members of the applicant’s family present during the clash had not appeared as witnesses although summoned by the delegates. There had therefore been no direct eyewitness evidence before the Commission as to what had occurred, which was regrettable. 36. Further, the documentary evidence had also been of second-hand quality. The incident report and sketch had been drawn up by İsa Gündoğdu, not by any gendarmerie officer involved in the operation and, from İsa Gündoğdu’s testimony before the delegates, it is not apparent that he questioned the security forces on the spot in any detail. Indeed his contact with them appeared to have been limited to radio contact, by way of coded transmissions. The Government had failed to comply with the Commission’s request to be informed of the name and of the unit of the commanding officer of the unit involved in the operation and to be provided with the copy of the logbook entry, register or field report which recorded the operation. 37. The Commission accordingly had little direct evidence as to what had occurred on the night of 29 September 1993. As to whether a clash had in fact taken place, the Commission noted that it had been alleged by the applicant that an indiscriminate bombardment of the village had been carried out in retaliation for the incidents in the village in which “collaborators” were, in one case, shot and, in the other, forced to leave. The Commission recalled that Major Kuzu had been directly involved in the move of the threatened villager and that he did not consider that the PKK had shot at the villager, but that it had been the other villagers who would have killed him as they wanted to know why he had left the organisation. İsa Gündoğdu commented that a great many people in the village had joined the organisation. The applicant’s allegation that the bombardment of the village could have been motivated by a desire to teach the village a lesson was not totally without substance. 38. The Commission noted several puzzling features. Major Kuzu had been the district gendarmerie commander but had had no apparent knowledge of, or role in, an operation within his jurisdiction, though he had felt able to give firm opinions as to what must have occurred. The night the