TURKISH EX-LEGISLATOR RECEIVES SUSPENDED SENTENCE FOR AIDING CRIMINAL GANG
The Associated Press

International Herald Tribune, France
Nov 13 2006

ANKARA, Turkey: A former lawmaker who was at the center of a major
corruption scandal in Turkey 10 years ago was given a one-year
suspended sentence on Monday for aiding a criminal gang.

Sedat Bucak, a legislator until 2002, was the only survivor of a
car crash in 1996 that set off investigations and revealed cozy and
profitable alliances between state officials and mobsters.

Passengers in the wrecked Mercedes included Istanbul’s No. 2 police
officer and a fugitive hit man. Bucak first went on trial in 2003 on
charges of aiding a criminal gang after he lost his seat in parliament,
which had shielded him from prosecution.

The court acquitted him of the charge, but a higher court overturned
the conviction and ordered a new trial.

An Istanbul court, concluding the retrial Monday, sentenced Bucak to
one year and 15 days in prison, but suspended the term. Bucak would
only be imprisoned if he commits another crime.

Investigations into the scandal, dubbed "Susurluk" after the town where
the crash occurred, confirmed suspicions that officials were using
ultranationalist thugs and criminals to intimidate or kill perceived
enemies of the state. A 1997 government report accused political
and police officials of hiring hit men to target Kurdish rebels,
journalists and anti-Turkish Armenian activists since the 1980s.

Many participants in the dirty war eventually joined Mafia-style
groups to win state contracts and other concessions, the report said.

One of the assassins reportedly on Turkey’s payroll was Abdullah Catli,
one of three people who died in the 1996 car accident.

Bucak was a clan chieftain-turned-legislator whose family once ran
a private army of 2,000 government-armed village guards fighting
Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey.