GÜLEÇ JUDGMENT OF 27 JULY 1998 20 In his report he stated that the accusations against Major Karatan were unfounded and did not reflect what had actually happened. Before arriving at that conclusion, he had taken evidence from witnesses, read expert reports and gathered other evidence from various official and private sources. Finally, he had taken a decision on the basis of his personal conviction. He had put himself in the place of the security forces faced with the demonstrators. He had thought about the case for days before reaching his decision, weighing all the possibilities. Mr Kurt had also taken evidence from the gendarmes and Major Karatan. He did not remember whether he had taken evidence from Güven Ersöz and had not taken a statement from Abdurrahman Abay, the mayor of İdil, whom he had seen by chance on his way to İdil town hall. Mr Abay had only told him that if the gendarmes had intervened sooner, they would have prevented most of the incidents. In his statement, Hüseyin Demir had told Mr Kurt that he had not seen exactly what had happened. He had only heard shots and seen the crowd but had not seen people being killed or wounded. Mr Kurt’s case file also contained statements from demonstrators. These statements had been taken by the public prosecutor and the previous investigator. Mr Kurt did not remember taking evidence from Mr Ayhan, the driver of the Condor vehicle. Nor did he remember how many shots had been fired in the air from the Condor. Before reaching his conclusion, he had taken into account not only witness statements, but also the results of his own investigations. These indicated that the young man had been killed before the security forces intervened. The PKK militants had been in the middle of the crowd of demonstrators, surrounded by women and children. They had fired shots in all directions in order to create an atmosphere of terror. Some bullets had ricocheted and hit Ahmet Güleç. The gendarmes had not even been there when he was wounded. He had found that the security forces had taken all necessary precautions. Those who had come forward as witnesses were reliable people. The mayor of İdil was one of them. There had been three or four thousand demonstrators. If firearms were discharged haphazardly, accidents could happen, even in a group of twenty to twenty-five people. In the case in point, the three or four thousand demonstrators had not been aware of the danger. It had even been inevitable that someone would be killed. He had interviewed everyone, even the victim’s relatives, who had explained to him that Ahmet Güleç had very probably been killed by PKK bullets.