Flat mate tells about Ömer Güney – Update !

THANKS TO ANF ! A very responsibly and serious Report ! (MESOP)

ANF 25.1.2013 – Life of suspect arrested in connection with Paris killings begins to emerge from account of flat mate. ANF spoke to Y.A., the home mate of Ömer Güney, suspect of the killings of Sakine Cansız, a co-founder of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), Fidan Doğan, representative of the KNK (Kurdistan National Congress) in Paris, and Leyla Şaylemez, member of the Kurdish youth movement, in Paris on 9 July.

Y.A. Had also been taken into custody with Güney in connection with the killings but was later released as he was proved to have no links with the executions.

Suspect Güney is once again described as a person with a “dark side” by his home-mate who says Güney won the trust of the people in the Kurdish community by making translations for the Kurds at the Villiers-le-Bel centre which he joined in November of 2011. According to the statements by his home mate, Güney would always carry a screwdriver, a knife and sprayer with him. He once brought an arm to the house where he had been living with two other people for the last one and a half month, says his home mate Y.A. who notes that “He claimed the arm was a blank firing gun, when we reprehended him”.

There are also some attention-grabbing points as to the suspect in whose room the raid French police found 4 or 5 mobile phones during the raid after his detention. Neither the Kurdish association nor his home mates know anything about Güney’s relations with his family, his coming from Germany to Paris or his life before he joined the association.

“I know him for the last one year as someone from the Villiers-le-Bel Association. We didn’t have much conversation at first but in time we started to be on familiar terms with him. He appeared to be an easy going and calm person. I trusted him as I observed him having contacts with the friends at the association. He would always tell us that he wanted to achieve something in life”, says his home mate who tells that he opened his door to Güney because of his relations with the people at the association. “We were three people sharing the same house for the last one and a half month”, he adds.

Y.A. tells that Güney seemed to have sympathy for the Kurdish guerrilla movement and seemed to be intended to dedicate his life to this movement.

Asked about Güney’s relations with Kurdish circles in France, Y.A. notes that; “He told me that he had grown up in France before he moved to Germany for some time, married there and then divorced after some time”.

Y.A. said Güney told him that he had been threatened by Turkish circles who criticized him for his communication and relations with Kurdish circles despite his Turkish identity. “He said he started to develop sympathy for Kurdish people when he was in Germany where he said Kurdish patriotic people used to help him when he had problems with his work at a plastics factory”.

Concerning the suspect’s nationality, Y.A. noted that “He told me his father was a Kurd but not a sympathizer of the Kurdish movement. He said he had been treated warmly by the people at the Villiers-le-Bel Association. He also said that his mother was a Turk and strongly reacted against him for his relation with the Kurdish association. He said he just kept in touch with his sister and had lived with her before moving to our house because of her husband’s complaints about his connection with the Kurdish association”.

Asked about Güney’s economic conditions and his work at a French airport, Y.A. said that “He mentioned about his work at the airport which he said he had quit because of his health problems. 

“He seemed quite excited about his activities in the Kurdish association and he used to say that he would organize his family also. He used to say he was a better Kurd than me”, Y.A. noted.

Y.A. told the followings as to the day when they heard about the killings; “I didn’t observe any suspicious behavior in him that day when a friend called me at around 03:05 in the morning and told that three our comrades had been killed. In shock, I immediately woke my home mates and told them what had happened. He said he didn’t believe that and that he had seen them safe and sound that day. However he didn’t mention about what he had done with them at the office that day.”

“Then we went to the scene all together and stayed there for some time until he asked me to go the police headquarters. When I asked him why he was going there, he said he was supposed to bear testimony because of the translation he had made. Then I went with him, they took him into custody and then let me go, saying I was detained for sharing the same house with him. I didn’t have any suspicion about him, thinking his detention was related with his translation works and footage of cameras.” According to Y.A., Güney had an interest in arms and asked questions about types of arms and their properties. Y.A. notes that Güney would sometimes suggest him going to mosque and praying there together . 

Y.A. remarks that Güney had never mentioned about his visits to Turkey in 2012, adding that he said he would go to his sister or to Normandiya when he didn’t come home.