FORTEAN FOLLOW-UPS
A hefty sentence for Turkey’s kookiest crook, plus a solution to Canada’s severed feet mystery
TURKISH SEX CULT LEADER JAILED [FT377:46-51]
Adnan Oktar, leader of a cult considered to be a criminal organisation by Turkish prosecutors, was convicted of various offences in January 2021 and sentenced to a total of 1,075 years and three months’ imprisonment by an Istanbul court. Oktar, 64, was among some 236 defendants who had been on trial since September 2019. Oktar and dozens of his followers were arrested in simultaneous nationwide raids in 2018. A 499-page indictment portrayed him and others as a criminal gang involved in blackmail, extortion, money laundering and other crimes, which included political and military espionage, aiding the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), sexual abuse of minors, torture, abduction, illegal wiretapping, fraud, threats, attempted murder and forgery. One of the defendants, Tarkan Yava, was given a 211year sentence for being a leading member of the group, sexual abuse of a minor, sexual abuse, misstatement of property and committing perjury in an official document. Oktar Babuna, another defendant, was given 186 years in jail for being a member of a gang, sexual abuse of a minor and sexual abuse.
Prosecutors said Oktar’s gang had been recruiting and brainwashing young women since the late 1990s. “The organisation used its good-looking members to deceive young girls and women. Those members raped or sexually abused women and were blackmailed first by members pretending that their affairs were recorded on video. They were also brainwashed under the pretext of religious teachings,” read part of the indictment. Adnan Oktar first came to public attention in the 1980s when he gained a following among university students, mostly children of Turkey’s wealthy elite. During this period, he was arrested for promoting a theocratic revolution. After some time in a mental institution and an arrest for cocaine possession, Oktar expanded his cult in the 1990s via his Science Research Foundation which promoted his anti-evolution books. In the 2000s he became nationally famous after founding his own cable TV channel. He also appeared on talk shows where he expounded his unusual views and theories on religion and other subjects, occasionally breaking into dance routines with his good looking followers. He is said to have suggested bikinis may be regarded as a form of Islamic veil, and that vodka is exempt from Islam’s prohibition on alcohol.
But state prosecutors claimed Oktar was more than just a promoter of strange religious views and conspiracy theories. Former followers and families of those allegedly brainwashed by the cult came forward during the investigation, telling of threats and blackmail to keep them inside the cult and to submit to Oktar’s orders.
Oktar’s final defence saw him flatly reject the allegations against him. He denied the accusations of sexual abuse, saying he had “close to 1,000 girlfriends” and had an “overflowing of love for women”. One witness told the court how Oktar had repeatedly raped her and other women, some of whom had been forced to take contraceptives. When asked about 69,000 contraception pills found in his home by police, Oktar said they were used to treat skin and menstrual disorders. He also refuted charges of running a criminal organisation, claiming that he simply had a large circle of friends. As for his alleged links to FETÖ and the espionage charges, Oktar blamed a conspiracy against him by “certain forces”. When arrested, he had exclaimed “It’s a British plot!” and apparently believes the world is ruled by a shadowy ‘British Deep State’ of 300 persons, including the Queen and the Pope. dailysabah. com, Guardian, 11 Jan 2021.
FLOATING FEET [FT345:223; 289:20; 281:11; 278:19; 273:11; 268:22-23; 245:20]
The mystery of numerous severed feet found washed ashore on Pacific Northwest coastlines appears to have been solved in a new book, Gory Details: Adventures From the Dark Side of Science by Erika Engelhaupt. In 2007, a 12-year-old girl spotted a lone blue-and-white running shoe on a beach of British Columbia’s
Jedediah Island. Inside the shoe was a foot clad in a sock. Six days later, on nearby Gabriola Island, a Vancouver couple came across a black-and-white Reebok with a decomposing foot inside. While it was clear that the feet didn’t belong to the same person, both shoes contained right feet and were men’s size 12s. The following year, five more feet turned up on nearby Canadian beaches. Over the course of the next 12 years, a total of 15 feet washed ashore in the area around Vancouver Island, a network of waterways called the Salish Sea; six more turned up in Puget Sound, over the US border at the southern end of the sea. Apart from one foot clad in an old hiking boot, all were wearing trainers.
Various theories were proposed to explain the phenomenon: a serial killer with a foot fetish, a container full of migrants that had capsized and was now sitting on the ocean’s floor, aliens, and more. But Laura Yazedjian, a forensic anthropologist who works as a human identification specialist for the British Columbia Coroners Service, undertook an investigation of the behaviour of human bodies in water. Most human cadavers will sink, due to a lack of oxygen in the lungs which otherwise function as a flotation device if filled with air. A body that floats and is exposed to air will decompose in a different way to those that sink; and those that do sink tend to go straight to the bottom. Sometimes, an underwater cadaver will eventually bloat, causing it to bob to the surface. But that doesn’t always happen, and in a deep lake or ocean, it may never come back up. Not only does the cold inhibit
decay in deep waters, but the increased water pressure prevents any gases from expanding and causing bodies to float. Instead, other microbial processes take over and convert a sunken body’s tissues to adipocere, a kind of waxy, soap-like tissue, which can persist for years or even centuries in a low-oxygen environment.
The severed feet found washed up on the shores of the Salish Sea were covered in adipocere, which might explain where the rest of the bodies were: they had sunk to the sea floor and remained there to decompose. Research in 2007 by forensic scientist Gail Anderson of Simon Fraser University for the Canadian Police Research Centre was conducted to learn how quickly a homicide victim would decompose in the ocean. Pigs’ carcasses were used, since pigs are roughly comparable to humans in size, and are quite similar biologically. Anderson found that the pig’s body, after sinking to the sea floor, was quickly eaten by shrimp, lobsters and crabs, starting with the anus region and the facial orifices. Underwater scavengers like crustaceans tend to work around bones and other tough areas of the body, preferring softer tissues. And since human ankles are composed mostly of soft tissue like ligaments, this would seem to explain why ‘severed’ feet keep appearing. If they really had been severed, cut marks would have been found on the bones. And feet clad in trainers made in the last decade or so would almost certainly float, because of gasfilled pockets and foams used in the soles with more air mixed in have made trainers lighter and more buoyant.
As for why the Salish Sea has seen so many of these feet, it seems this large body of inland water acts as a trap; westerly winds bring material in from the ocean where it remains. Why trainers? It is thought that many of the feet belonged to walkers who wore these sports shoes while hiking among the slippery rocks. Taken together, these factors, together with cold deep waters and healthy scavenger populations, make the Salish the ideal foot magnet. DNA taken from each foot and matched against a database of more than 500 missing people in British Columbia and against Canada’s National Missing Persons DNA Programme was able to link nine of the feet to seven missing people. For two, both feet were found; most had been missing for a year or more. The longest-missing person had disappeared in 1985; his foot in a hiking boot was found in 2011. In the most recent case, the foot of a young man who disappeared in 2016 washed up on an island in Puget Sound in 2019. The BC Coroners Service reports that none of the Canadian cases have so far been found to have been homicides. In some cases, it became clear that the person had died by accident or suicide (one woman had jumped from a bridge). Five of the feet still remain unidentified, but the solution as to why the feet appeared – hungry crustaceans – seems to fit the known facts. nationalgeographic.com, 15 Mar 2021.
MAD LOVE [FT240:22-23, 357:8-9, 388:6, FT394:11]
Gaëlle Engel, 43, claims to have been sexually attracted to inanimate objects since she was 12, but says she didn’t know true passion until she fell in love with a German rollercoaster. The painter and poet has had three serious romantic human relationships, but found them all to be traumatic. “I will not philosophise on these relationships that ruined my life but it was only suffering, physical and moral,” she said. “The men I dated had a lot of issues with alcohol and it was a very hard time for me.” But a visit to the Holiday Park in southwestern Germany, 35km (22 miles) from Heidelberg (the venerable university town associated with such philosophical luminaries as Arendt, Gadamer, Habermas,
Hegel, Jaspers and Weber) led to an encounter with the theme park’s white-knuckle attraction, Sky Scream. “Since I met the Sky Scream rollercoaster, I understood what love was,” says the French-born artist. “I spend every moment dreaming of a carnal and fusional relationship with it.” Unlike her previous romantic partners, the rollercoaster, having no alcohol, drug or other issues, allows Ms Engel to feel empowered. “With Sky Scream, I feel completely confident.”
Of course, the couple are unable to consummate their relationship, but, Ms Engel says that “life made me understand that sex was not a priority in my relationship, especially following the difficulties and trials we encountered in not being able to see each other” due to the long-distance nature of their relationship. As an alternative to being in physical contact with her love, Ms Engel collects objects that represent Sky Scream to her, including a board of photos, an array of objects bought from the theme park and a pillow that has the rollercoaster’s image printed on it, which she hugs daily. The artist finds her adoration for the theme park attraction frequently manifests in her work. “Sky Scream inspires me a lot in everything I write and draw,” she says. Having created models of the Sky Scream and other rollercoasters, she feels that the two have reproduced. “There are even some models that I made that are totally new inventions, so you can say that I have Sky Scream kids.”
Ms Engel is not alone in her unusual choice of romantic partner. In 2017, self-identified ‘objectum sexual’ Carol Santa Fe, claimed she had been in love with San Diego’s historic Santa Fe train depot since the age of nine, taking its name for her own surname as if the two were a married couple. Similarly, Erika Eiffel and EijaRiitta Eklöf-Berliner-Mauer say they have each ‘married’ their own objects of desire, the Eiffel Tower and the Berlin Wall respectively. Another selfdescribed ‘objectum sexual’ person (that is, someone attracted to objects rather than people) is Amanda Liberty, 34, who initially fell in love with a drum kit at the age of 14. She then lost her heart to New York City’s Statue of Liberty, changing her surname by deed poll to Liberty. In 2020 she transferred her affections to a chandelier she calls Lumiere, but said she is still on friendly terms with the Statue of Liberty. New York Post, Sun, 12 Mar 2021.