After being kidnapped by PKK members, Mullah Ali was asked to curse the values he believed in, but he did not accept this humiliation and displayed a glorious resistance. Seeing that he was firmly committed to his faith, the PKK members tortured the 32-year-old father of four, Mullah Ali, to death.
He was taken out of the vehicle because he had a beard
Mullah Ali Elbahadır, who was born in a religious family in the Yamaç village of Turkey’s eastern Bingöl province in 1961, moved to Diyarbakır where his elder brother lived when he was a young boy. Mullah Ali, who successfully completed the school, served as an imam in the Siverek district of Şanlıurfa for three years. Later, he was assigned to Taşdım (Musya) village in Diyarbakır’s Eğil district, and from there to Eğil Merkez Fevziye Mosque in 1989.
Mullah Ali, the father with three boys and a girl, was taken off the bus on 23 August 1992 by the PKK, 500 meters ahead of the Körğa (Korxan) Gendarmerie Station, in the Diyarbakır-Bingöl Highway Lice District (Dêra Reş) location, just because he had a beard and was an imam.
According to the statements of Mullah Ali's family, PKK members unload all the people in the vehicles and perform identity checks. Noticing Mullah Ali's beard, PKK members ask, 'What do you do?' Mullah Ali says that he is an imam. A policeman and 2 teachers are detained along with Mullah Ali. Allegedly, one of the teachers was released, stating that he was also a PKK sympathizer.
His ribs were broken, his heart and eyes were shot…
According to the autopsy reports and the testimonies of those who went to recover the body, Mullah Ali's hands were tied behind his back, all his ribs were broken by torture, bullets were put into his palms, chest level, heart and one eye, his face was cut into pieces and he was brutally murdered.
After the news of his martyrdom had reached, his relatives and friends set off for recovering his body.
N.A, a close friend and neighbor of Mullah Ali, recounted what happened next as follows:
“We split into groups and started the search. At least we wanted to find his blessed body. We turned our face towards the mountain road and proceeded on the mountain road. We were a group of seven. After walking for a while, two PKK members appeared in front of us and pointed the gun at us, and asked, ‘Where are you going to?’. We explained the situation and said that we wanted the funeral. PKK members then took us to a house and talked to someone over the walkie-talkie. When a friend of ours asked, ‘Why did you kill our friend, what did you want?’ the PKK member said: ‘We bought it because he has a beard, and then we learned that he was an imam. We asked him to deny what he believed on the condition of release, but he did not. We asked him to curse Hizbullah; he didn't curse. We tortured, but it didn't profit. “We killed it too,” he said. That friend got angry. Thereupon, PKK members took the walkie-talkie again and said, 'Shall I kill them?' However, the walkie-talkie did not work, so they took us to their superiors, the place where Mullah Ali was martyred.
We were shocked when we saw his blessed body. It had an additional name, and that was brutality. Martyr Mullah Ali's hands were tied in what they call the Russian tie. They had been severely tortured; their arms were broken and there were bullet marks all over the body. It was fired at very close range, a bullet hitting his right eye and leaving the back of his head, and a bullet over his heart. He was lying there, covered in blood. We immediately took the body of the martyr and brought it to Diyarbakır. It was evening, we removed the body of the martyr to the morgue of Dicle University, the prosecutor came and they took it for autopsy. In the morning, we took our martyr and buried him in the Ali Pınar cemetery."
Speaking to Ilke News Agency on the anniversary of Mullah Ali's martyrdom, his older sister, Gürcü Elbahadır, stated that everyone was pleased with her brother.
Elbahadır said: “Martyr Mullah Ali had very good morals in the family, he had a very good conversation with people at home. With his beautiful life, he was also very good with people outside. He was 3 years younger than me. After meeting with the Islamic cause, his demeanor and behavior changed and he started to give more importance to his worship. He served as an imam in Eğil for a while, and everyone there loved him very much.”
“He was constantly talking about martyrs”
Elbahadır said: “When he came home, he was bringing the hymn tapes, sometimes I was against it, I was angry, but he would tell us, he would say that 'the people involved in this case are good, they have an Islamic life'. Close to his martyrdom, he was constantly talking about the martyrs, the places where they were martyred, and how they became martyrs. One day he came home, brought a tape, and listened to the hymns. He said, ‘I hope I will be a martyr in the way of Islam.’ I was angry, I said don't say that. He was saying, 'The love of this cause has entered my heart,' and because he was sincere in his cause, Allah granted him martyrdom.”
Talking about the dream that she had after Mullah Ali's martyrdom, Elbahadır said: “He said to me in my dream, 'Sister, I hope I got a degree from Allah.' I saw it in my dream exactly as I saw it in my life. Then he reproached me and said, 'You were angry with me, you saw with your eyes how beautiful my place was”.