Turkish officer detained over missing Kurds

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Associated Press – Media reports say police have detained a military officer allegedly implicated in the disappearance of Kurds thought to have been executed by security forces.

Prosecutors are investigating whether the Kurds, who went missing in the 1990s, were buried in alleged mass graves. The detention Friday follows the discovery of cloth and several bones in the suspected graves of Kurds in the southeast.

The officer, a colonel, reportedly served in the area as a captain in the early 1990s.

Authorities have found at least one skull and several pieces of bones as well as hair and cloth in excavations at several sites.

Turkish forces are accused of having carried out extra-judicial killings at the height of clashes with separatist Kurdish rebels in the 1990s.