Halil Kut

Halil Kut (1881 – 20 August 1957), also known as Halil Pasha, was an Ottoman Turkish military commander and politician. He served in the Ottoman Army during World War I, notably taking part in the military campaigns against Russia in the Caucasus and the British in Mesopotamia.

Halil was responsible for numerous atrocities committed against Armenian and Assyrian civilians during the Armenian genocide, overseeing the massacres of Armenian men, women and children in Bitlis, Mush, and Beyazit. His paternal lineage was based on the Gagauz people.

When the Ottoman empire entered World War I, Kut was serving in the Ottoman High Command in Constantinople. He was the military commander of the Istanbul Vilayat between January and December 1914.

In January 1916, he was given command of the Ottoman forces besieging the British garrison held up in Kut in southern Iraq.

Role in Armenian genocide Halil Pasha was responsible for massacring Armenians during the course of the Armenian genocide. He took part in the killings of civilians during the Siege of Van in 1915. He ordered Armenian men in the units under his command be put to death. He managed to evade prosecution and fled from detention to Anatolia in August 1920.

Kut went on to claim in his memoirs that he had "more or less" killed 300,000 Armenians. During a meeting with a group of Armenians in Yerevan in the summer of 1918, he declared to that he had "endeavored to wipe out the Armenian nation to the last individual."

Kut was permitted to return to Turkey after the declaration of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. He died in 1957 in Istanbul. His last wish was to have rakı (an alcoholic drink) poured on his grave, which became a source of controversy among conservatives in Turkey.