Bora Arslanoğlu, a former officer dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces by emergency decree and later acquitted in the case against him, left his home in Ankara at 08:30 on 15 September 2026. According to DEM Party MP and human rights defender Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, he messaged colleagues that he had bought a simit and would be there in 15 minutes. He did not arrive, his phone was switched off, and his family could not reach him.

On 19 September, Gergerlioğlu said the Ankara Police Directorate had told them Arslanoğlu was not in custody. He asked the Ankara Governor’s Office whether this was another case of abduction and disappearance, and whether Arslanoğlu was being tortured.

On 22 September, Gergerlioğlu said it had emerged that Arslanoğlu was in police custody in Ankara, eight days after he went missing. He said that when a lawyer engaged by the family visited him, Arslanoğlu said he did not want that lawyer and that he had been wandering in parks for eight days. Gergerlioğlu noted that he did not ask about his family.

Gergerlioğlu also said Arslanoğlu’s wife had been remanded and sent to Sincan Women’s Prison, and asked whether there was any connection between the two events.

He put six questions to the Ankara police and the Ankara Governor’s Office: where Arslanoğlu was during those eight days; whether the police knew of his whereabouts; when, where and on what grounds he was taken into custody; why his family was not informed; why he answered as he did in the lawyer meeting; and whether his wife’s remand was connected to his disappearance. He called on the Interior Minister to make a public statement and said it must be investigated whether an enforced disappearance or unlawful detention had taken place.

As of 23 September, no statement from the Ankara Police Directorate or the Ankara Governor’s Office had been reported.

Arslanoğlu was reported missing on 15 September. On 22 September, an MP stated that he was in police custody in Ankara. The authorities have not said where he was in between.