WordBulletin

World Bulletin / News Desk

Turkish parliamentarian Hüseyin Aygün, who was freed on Tuesday after being held captive for two days by the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), is expected to testify to prosecutors who have launched an investigation into the incident.

Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Aygün said on Wednesday that he will testify to prosecutors on Thursday. Aygün was kidnapped on Sunday by PKK gunmen who set up a roadblock in Tunceli and released late on Tuesday.

The deputy's family had said the politician was with military police after PKK operatives walked him through a mountainous area and then left him to walk by himself to a village within sight of the point where he was released. Aygün was freed near Aşağı Torunoba in the Ovacık district, some six or seven kilometers away from where he was kidnapped on Sunday night.

Once he reached the post, Tunceli prosecutors called Aygün and asked him to share details about his ordeal. However, he refused to provide any more details about the kidnapping and said he would inform security forces later. Aygün explained on Wednesday that he was simply too tired to provide all the details immediately after his release.

Aygün said at a news conference in Tunceli late on Tuesday that his captors told him they had kidnapped him for “political propaganda.” He added that he didn't receive any threats and that the captors were respectful of him. He also said his captors requested he continue his political activities without any party affiliation, but that he replied this was not be possible “under the shadow of guns.”

Aygün asserted that the incident was not intended to threaten him, but “to send a message to the Turkish people.” He added that those who captured him were a young group and that it appeared to him that most of them wanted to return home.