Thread by @balazscseko

My latest piece for The Telegraph
:
“Two masked men came with an electric shock and they started to hit me while I was sleeping,” Mr Öztürk told the Telegraph by telephone from Tunisia. #Vienna #Austria #Josefstadt

telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/1…

A suspected Turkish intelligence agent turned whistleblower claims he was tortured by Austrian authorities after reporting an alleged plot to assassinate @Berivan_Aslan_

Feyyaz #Öztürk, a 53-year-old Italian citizen, was deemed a “significant threat” to Austrian national security. He told the Telegraph he was stripped naked, severely beaten and given electric shocks by interrogators inside #Vienna’s main prison.

After being separated from his inmates and transferred to an isolation cell, #Öztürk claims he was stripped. “I was totally naked. They hit my testicles. After that, I had blood in my urine for four days,” he said.

Prosecutors denied being aware of allegations of mistreatment.

Mr Öztürk’s Austrian lawyer, told he had seen an official police report which recorded his client’s allegation that he had been tortured while in custody.

The Austrian interior ministry declined to comment on the allegations on the grounds the case is still sub judice.

@AmnestyAustria can "confirm that detention conditions at detention #Josefstadt prison are inhumane, including violence among prisoners, insufficient protection of inmates by prison guards, self-harm and suicide attempts. Overcrowding is also a concrete problem."

Official documents seen by the Telegraph indicate that Mr Öztürk was also questioned by American @FBI agents during his time in Austrian custody. There is no indication that the #FBI was involved in the alleged torture.

#FBI questioned his client about the case of #MetinTopuz, a local staff member at the US consulate-general in Istanbul who was sentenced to almost nine years in prison by a Turkish court last year on charges of aiding an “armed terror group”.

Öztürk he was never an officer in Turkey’s #MIT intelligence service but worked as a freelance agent with a number of international intelligence services. He claims Austria’s #BVT intelligence service tried to recruit him during his time in custody.

The Austrian indictment against him described #Öztürk as having a “remarkable insider knowledge” of the intelligence community.

Öztürk's allegations of torture come at a difficult time for the Austrian Gov. @karlnehammer, the interior minister, & the #BVT domestic intelligence service have been under pressure over the failure to prevent an Islamist terror attack in #Vienna last November.

Last month the home of Gernot #Blümel, the finance minister and a close ally of chancellor @sebastiankurz, was raided by police in connection with an alleged corruption scandal.