Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Nov 15 2008

Key Ergenekon suspect denies allegations

The 13th hearing in the Ergenekon trial was held yesterday, with
retired Capt. Muzaffer Tekin, one of the key suspects in the trial,
giving his defense statement.

Tekin argued that his arrest as a suspected member of Ergenekon, a
criminal network accused of plotting to overthrow the government, was
based on the discovery of empty hand grenade shells he was using to
store stationery. The Ergenekon investigation was set off with the
unearthing of explosives and ammunition in the summer of 2007 inside a
house in Ä°stanbul’s Ã`mraniye district.

Tekin said he was implicated in the investigation only because two
hollow hand grenades in his office were being used as pencil
holders. "It is impossible to understand why these ornamental grenades
in the indictment were treated as weapons of the ‘organization’
despite my having repeated many times in the police interrogation that
the fuse elements of these two hand grenades had been taken out and
they were souvenirs for when I retired," Tekin said, accusing the
prosecutors of being selective with parts of a file on a 2007 attack
on the Council of State, which, the prosecution asserts, was organized
by Ergenekon. Tekin said the police had no evidence that the bombs
were owned by any organization.

Tekin said he first heard the name "Ergenekon terrorist organization"
after the Council of State attack, in which a senior judge was fatally
shot. "I am most distressed about being associated with an
organization that I do not know a single thing about."

He also claimed that that indictment was an exact match to the script
of the popular TV series "Kurtlar Vadısı," (Valley of
the Wolves), which features the story of shady characters working as
undercover agents and their relationships with the criminal mafia.

He stated that he had never taken part in an illegal network such as
Ergenekon in his life. He accused the prosecution of turning the
nickname used by his family into a "codename" he supposedly uses
inside the organization. He also accused the prosecution of sending
confidential documents about the investigation to pro-government
newspapers.

Tekin said the case was riddled with major violations of the law and
claimed most of the evidence was manufactured while the suspects had
been in prison. He accused the prosecution of being on a witch hunt
against critics of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
government.

He also claimed that statements from suspect Osman
Yıldırım are not
true. Yıldırım testified that he planned the
Council of State murder together with Alparslan Arslan, who was the
hit man in the attack. He disparaged the indictment’s claim that
Yıldırım had rejected $1 million to shoot
academic Necip HablemitoÄ?lu. "Yıldırım
tu rned down $1 million in 2002 but accepted $500,000 to bomb the
office of the Cumhuriyet newspaper. This is not consistent with the
rules of everyday life," he said. The attackers of the Council of
State also carried out a hand grenade attack at Cumhuriyet’s office
the same year, with no one being injured.

The Ä°stanbul 13th High Criminal Court is hearing the case in a
makeshift courtroom inside Silivri Prison near Ä°stanbul. Among
the 86 suspects are retired Gen. Veli Küçük and
lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz, who is known for filing lawsuits
against intellectuals over writings that question or criticize the
state line on issues such as Armenian allegations of
genocide. Forty-six of the suspects are in custody, and the rest have
been released pending the outcome of the trial.

The existence of Ergenekon has long been suspected, but the current
investigation into the group began only in 2007.

The Ergenekon indictment, made public in July, claims that the
Ergenekon network is behind a series of political assassinations
carried out over the past two decades for the ultimate purpose of
triggering a military coup and taking over the government. The victims
include secularist journalist UÄ?ur Mumcu, long believed to have
been assassinated by Islamic extremists in 1993; the head of a
business conglomerate, Ã-zdemir Sabancı, who was shot dead
by militants of the extreme-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation
Party/Front (DHKP/C) in his high-security office in 1996; and
secularist academic HablemitoÄ?lu, who was also believed to have
been killed by Islamic extremists in 2002.

Suspects face various charges, including "membership in an armed
terrorist group," "attempting to destroy the government," "inciting
people to rebel against the Republic of Turkey" and other similar
crimes.

15 November 2008, Saturday
TODAY’S ZAMAN Ä°STANBUL