Shop owners who hung teenager from ceiling released pending trial

Duvar English

Two brothers that own a shop selling spare auto parts in the central Anatolian city of Konya have been released pending trial on charges of torturing a teenager. The brothers allegedly hung a 15-year old employee from the ceiling by his pants, punishing him for having forgotten a specific type of screw the boy was sent to purchase.

The boy, E.A.Y., had begun to work at the shop in the Karatay district of Konya last September. At the time, his older brother, 20-year-old H.H.Y., was also employed at the shop. Twenty days after having started work, E.A.Y. was told by shop owner M.C. to go to a supplier to purchase screws. E.A.Y. forgot the number of the screws he was instructed to buy, so he called his older brother to ask him, who then asked his boss and told his brother the number. 

Upon returning to work, E.A.Y. said that M.C. approached him and told him “How could you forget the number?”. His boss then grabbed him by the ear before hanging him from the ceiling by his pants using a winch. “For fifteen minutes I hung there in pain. After a while, because they thought the winch would break, they brought me down. I was left in pain. Previously, they had sprayed chemical fluids on me whilst I was cleaning a work machine. The next day my entire body was swollen. When I think about these moments I feel angry and embarrassed. They also slapped and kicked my brother and gave him a black eye,” E.A.Y. said. 

While E.A.Y. ceased to go to work after the incident, his brother continued working at the shop. Yet on December 5, the brother was allegedly beaten by his boss, upon which he got a hospital report and his family filed a criminal complaint. An investigation also was launched against M.C. and his brother, M.C. on charges of intentional injury. The brothers were arrested, but subsequently released pending trial.