KURT JUDGMENT OF 25 MAY 1998 10 gendarmes on 7 December 1994. None of the villagers questioned saw Üzeyir Kurt being taken into custody. Hasan Kılıç affirmed in his statement that Üzeyir Kurt had arrived at his house on the morning of 24 November, spent the night there and left the following morning when his mother arrived. While there had been soldiers staying in the house overnight, Hasan Kılıç maintained that the applicant and her son left the house together and the soldiers definitely did not leave with Üzeyir Kurt. All the above statements were studied by the Commission when assessing the evidence before it. The Government rely on these statements to support their contention that the applicant’s son had not been detained in the village by the security forces as alleged and that there was a reasonable likelihood that he had either been kidnapped by the PKK or left to join the PKK. The Government also produced in the proceedings before the Commission the incident report drawn up by security forces on 24 November 1993; a report dated 19 November 1994 from the Bismil public prosecutor to the Diyarbakır Principal Public Prosecutor’s office suggesting that the evidence pointed to the applicant’s son having been kidnapped by the PKK following the clash on 23 November 1993; and a report dated 8 December 1994 prepared by Colonel Eşref Hatipoğlu of the Gendarmerie General Command, Diyarbakır, on the conduct of the operation in Ağıllı village and confirming, inter alia, that the applicant’s son had not been taken into custody. D. Proceedings before the domestic authorities 39. On 30 November 1993 the applicant submitted a thumb-printed petition to the Bismil public prosecutor, Ridvan Yıldırım. It stated that her son had been taken into custody following a clash between the gendarmes and the PKK at her village and that she was concerned about his fate. She requested that she be informed of his fate. On the same date the public prosecutor passed the petition to the district gendarmerie command with a handwritten request for the information to be provided. The district gendarmerie command noted in handwriting on the petition the same day that it was not true that Üzeyir Kurt had been taken into custody and that it was supposed that he may have been kidnapped by the PKK. 40. By letter dated 30 November 1993 Captain Cural, under heading of the provincial gendarmerie command, informed the Bismil Principal Public Prosecutor’s office in answer to their unnumbered letter that Üzeyir Kurt had not been taken into custody and it was thought that he had probably been kidnapped by terrorists.