06.05.2026 16:50
In the Gülistan Doku case, which caused public outrage, the statement given by the young girl's ex-boyfriend Zeinal Abarakov to the gendarmerie has emerged. In his statement, Abarakov confessed to tracking Gülistan through his Google account, saying, 'Gülistan had my Google account saved on her phone. I tried to locate the phone through my Google account.'
Ebru Cansu, one of Turkey's 3 female chief prosecutors, was appointed to Tunceli with the June 2024 decree of the Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK). As soon as she took office, she took down the Gülistan Doku file from the shelf and began examining it. Upon the instruction of Chief Prosecutor Ebru Cansu, who re-evaluated the investigation from the beginning, a special team was formed consisting of personnel from the Gendarmerie Crime Investigation Teams (JASAT), known as 'Gendarmerie Detectives'. All KGYS footage and PTS records from the city from the day before and the day Gülistan Doku disappeared were collected.
The file now includes new footage of Gülistan, along with an additional 700 hours of footage from 70 KGYS cameras—67 of which are on main arteries. The footage, which reveals where Gülistan came from to the café where she met her ex-boyfriend Zeinal Abarakov before disappearing, when she left the café to go to her teacher, was watched second by second by the Chief Prosecutor's Office and the special team, and Gülistan's fate was investigated. Additionally, suspects were added to the file, and HTS and PTS analyses were conducted. After the necessary work was completed, an operation was launched. In the file, which turned from a missing person case into a 'murder' investigation, operations were carried out on April 14, 17, and 24 on suspicion of murder. 17 suspects were detained. A red notice was issued for Umut Altaş, a suspect in the file who is in the USA.
THE FORMER GOVERNOR, HIS SON, AND 12 SUSPECTS ARRESTED Following their procedures at the gendarmerie, among the suspects referred to the courthouse, Tuncay Sonel's son Mustafa Türkay Sonel and Erdoğan Elaldı, who was determined to have had the last contact with Gülistan Doku through narrowed base station analysis and was a former employee of the Special Provincial Administration, were arrested for 'Intentional killing'. Gülistan Doku's ex-boyfriend Zeinal Abarakov, Abarakov's father Engin Yücer and mother Cemile Yücer, fugitive suspect Umut Altaş's father Celal Altaş and mother Nurşen Arıkan, dismissed police officer Gökhan Ertok, and Şükrü Eroğlu, who was Tuncay Sonel's close bodyguard at the time, were arrested for 'Concealing and destroying evidence of a crime'. Ferhat Güven was arrested for 'Robbery' due to his action against Gülistan Doku's sister Aygül Doku and sent to prison. Çağdaş Özdemir, the former Chief Physician of Tunceli State Hospital, who was detained in Bursa on allegations of deleting Gülistan Doku's hospital records and brought to Tunceli Courthouse, was arrested for 'Falsifying, destroying, or concealing official documents'. Tuncay Sonel was arrested for 'Destroying, concealing, or altering evidence of a crime', 'Obstructing, corrupting, destroying, or altering data in an information system, unlawfully providing or seizing personal data', 'Falsifying, destroying, or concealing official documents'. Suspects U.A., S.G. (responsible for cameras at Munzur University), and S.Ö. were released under judicial control. Tunceli State Hospital IT staff Burçin Y. and Yücel E., detained on charges of 'Destroying and concealing evidence' regarding the alleged deletion of hospital records, were released under judicial control.
ACTIVITIES ON GÜLİSTAN'S PHONE WERE TRACKED In Zeinal Abarakov's statement given to the gendarmerie, it was stated that technical examinations by the National Criminal Bureau found evidence of 'activity tracking' related to the phone used by his girlfriend Gülistan Doku. The digital data obtained from the mobile phone examinations revealed activity tracking records related to the phone Gülistan used one day before her disappearance on January 4, 2020, at 22:21, and on the day of the incident, January 5, 2020, around 07:13 and 10:00. The examinations also stated that Google activity records for the SMS/Messages application were identified. In a question posed to Abarakov by the gendarmerie, it was asked: "It has been determined that this tracked phone is Gülistan's phone. Why did you feel the need to track Gülistan? Did you access the SMS/Messages application? Did you install a tracking application on Gülistan's device? What information did you obtain as a result of these tracks?" The report also stated that database examinations revealed device records prefixed with 'GU', and a total of 17 different activity findings were identified. The report also noted that since the activity tracks were in Russian, it was assessed that the operation was carried out by Zeinal Abarakov.
"MY GOOGLE ACCOUNT WAS REGISTERED ON HER PHONE" In his statement, Abarakov said that after Gülistan disappeared, he tried to access the account on her phone to find the phone's location, stating: "I did not know any passwords for Gülistan's social media applications. I do not remember trying to log into Gülistan's social media accounts. The Google account I used was registered on Gülistan's phone. I tried to find Gülistan's phone location through my Google account. In fact, when we were staying at the hotel in Antalya, I gave this account and its passwords to the police officers protecting us. Those officers looked at my account with the information I provided, but they did not get back to me about whether they found anything. I only know the director E. from among these police officers. The director E. was also with us during the early days of our hotel stay. After noticing that there was a search for 'KYK DORM' in the search history on my Google account after January 5, 2020, before giving these accounts to the police, I gave the account to the police for them to investigate the matter. I definitely did not perform this search, and I don't even know what KYK is. When Gülistan and I were together, on the contrary, I noticed that Gülistan Doku installed an application on my phone to access the messages on my phone," he said.