Psychiatrist ‘drugged up to 180 children and falsely convinced them they had been

A psychiatrist accused of drugging scores of children to convince them their parents had sexually abused them has been seized by police in Turkey.

Professor Suleyman Salih Zoroglu is said to have dosed nearly 200 youngsters with psychoactive drugs after they were taken to see him at his clinic in Istanbul in order to cash in on subsequent treatment.

Then, local media reports, he manipulated them to make them believe they had multiple personalities and had been subjected to sex attacks by their families.

Zoroglu and his staff were arrested in a police raid on his clinic on September 11, including a doctor who supplied him with illegal drugs.

Police believe Zoroglu – the head of the Department of Child Psychiatry at Istanbul Çapa Medical Faculty – clocked up huge fees while the ‘abused’ children were patients at his clinic, forcing families to pay up for treatment and drugs.

Professor Suleyman Salih Zoroglu (pictured) is said to have dosed nearly 200 youngsters with psychoactive drugs after they were taken to see him at his clinic in Istanbul

Zoroglu knew that while police were investigating the bogus abuse claims, he would be able to cash in on money for the children’s care, according to reports.

But instead of helping the youngsters, he used the sessions to reinforce their false memories of abuse and make their situation even worse, police believe.

Zoroglu was only exposed when the horrified parents of one 15-year-old girl brought to his clinic were determined to prove he was lying.

The girl was originally taken to Zoroglu by her parents in October last year because they worried she was failing at school.

Greedy Zoroglu quickly diagnosed her with dissociative identity disorder. He said she had 48 distinct personalities and blamed it on sexual abuse by her father.

Then while she was an inpatient at his clinic, he doped her with the powerful horse tranquiliser ketamine to compile a lurid catalogue of rape and abuse by her family.

Ketamine is a dissociative drug, meaning it acts on different chemicals in the brain to produce visual distortion and a detachment from reality. 

In a grim twist, he even ordered her parents to buy the drugs he was dosing her with and bombarded them with religious messages accusing them of sinning.

Together with the doctor she filed a 12-page report with authorities, but when police were called in to investigate, a medical examination found she was still a virgin, and that her stories about being raped could therefore not be true.

Suspecting that she might have been taking drugs as the reason for the allegations, further tests were carried out that revealed traces of ketamine in her hair, which led to the suspicion she had to have been taking this while she was in Zoroglu’s care.

It was only after the police took her away from the psychiatrist and his mind-bending treatments that she withdrew all her allegations about her parents and abuse.

The girl’s brother helped nail the shrink by saving key text messages between his sister and the medic which are said to have proven Zoroglu’s manipulative tactics.

His sister also provided prosecutors with a dossier of Zoroglu’s methods and the abuse he allegedly put seven other young patients through.

Zoroglu admits he prepared sexual abuse reports for more than 40 children but denied allegations of manipulation and coaching.

Prosecutors, however, suspect there may be as many as 180 children who received a bogus abuse diagnosis from Zoroglu.

The investigation continues.