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🇹🇷 Turkey /Crime & Justice

New development in Rojin Kabaiş investigation: records of 7,353 vehicles to be reviewed again

From Cumhuriyet · () Turkish

Translated from Turkish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Under investigation
  • Lawyers for Rojin Kabaiş’s family say authorities accepted most of about 30 investigative requests submitted since July 10.
  • They want license-plate recognition records for 7,353 vehicles reviewed again, along with drivers’ phone, location and DNA records.
  • The requests also cover possible evidence along the route where Kabaiş disappeared, social-media company records and forensic testing of objects found near the shore.

Lawyers for Rojin Kabaiş’s family have asked prosecutors in Van to broaden and repeat several lines of inquiry into the university student’s death.

Kabaiş disappeared in Van on Sept. 27, 2024. Authorities found her body by the lake on Oct. 15. Her lawyers, Abdurrahman Karabulut and Şahin Cangüleç, met reporters with her father, Nizamettin Kabaiş, and said they had submitted about 30 requests since July 10.

Karabulut said prosecutors had accepted all but two or three of the requests. One accepted request calls for a renewed examination of license-plate recognition and camera records covering 7,353 vehicles identified between the day Kabaiş disappeared and the day her body was found. The lawyers also want the drivers identified and their phone, telecommunications and location records, as well as DNA samples, examined.

Apart from two or three of our requests, all the others have been accepted, and investigations are continuing within this framework. Some have been completed, while others are still being examined.

· Abdurrahman KarabulutKabaiş family lawyer describing prosecutors’ response to the family’s investigative requests.

The family’s lawyers have asked for searches and DNA testing in villages along the route between Bardakçı, where Kabaiş disappeared, and Mollakasım’s Çarpanak Island, where she was found. They said one of her slippers is still missing. They have also asked Meta, which owns WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, to provide correspondence records. Prosecutors sent a more detailed request after Meta’s initial response, and the family is awaiting an answer.

The lawyers also sought files involving people in Bardakçı and Mollakasım who had been linked to criminal or sexual offenses. They want phone and location data checked to determine whether those people were present at the time. Fingerprint testing was conducted on objects Kabaiş left or may have been made to leave by the shore, including a cake, earphones, a key ring, a plastic bottle and a mobile phone. The lawyers said they requested a further fingerprint examination of the phone.

The request has also been accepted.

· Abdurrahman KarabulutKarabulut said prosecutors agreed to re-examine vehicle records and related phone and DNA data.
About this summary

Originally published by Cumhuriyet in Turkish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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