 Turkish columnist Mehmet Ali Birand, who had distinguished himself for his attempts to write openly about the country's Kurdish issue, called it a crime of "historical" proportions.In 1993, six years after the Pınarcık massacre nine members of a Kurdish family, Mehmet Ogut, his pregnant wife and seven of his children were burned to death in a village near Muş.The blame was originally put on the PKK and for twenty years the case was closed concluded as being a massacre committed by the PKK.