Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 10 2009
Ergenekon weapons cache unearthed in Ankara
A large cache of weapons, ammunition and bombs was found yesterday
buried in Ankara’s GölbaÅ?ı district as a result
of a police search based on a map found in the home of Ä°brahim
Å?ahin, a former head of the National Police Department’s
Special Operations Unit. The operation was launched after Å?ahin
recently ordered the assassination of non-Muslim minority leaders in
Sivas.
Å?ahin was detained along with 36 others on Wednesday in the
investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine network of groups and
individuals accused of trying to overthrow the government. Thirty
types of explosives and bombs as well as two shoulder carried LAWs
(light-anti tank weapon) were found buried in the ground. Newspapers
wrapped around the weapons were from the year 2004, the police
said. According to the initial official list, there were a large
number of bullets for 9mm guns, two LAWs, 10 hand grenades whose
serial numbers had been removed and 10 smoke bombs used in training
with colored smoke. Another boxed explosive was found in the first
phases of the excavation, the police said. There were also plastic
explosives buried at the site. The materials found have yet to be
examined thoroughly at a police crime lab.
The excavation of the site started on Thursday and continued until
midday. The teams resumed digging on Friday and located the
munitions. Excavations were also launched in the Bala, Mamak, Emek,
BeÅ?tepe, Saklıbahçe and Atatürk Orman
Ã?iftliÄ?i districts of the city, as well as in the city
of Hatay, to locate more weapons possibly buried in these areas, based
on evidence that emerged from investigations following Wednesday’s
arrests.
The operation started when Å?ahin, whose phone conversations had
been tapped by police for at least two months, recently gave the order
to finalize plans to assassinate Armenian community members in the
city of Sivas. Twelve others were detained in Sivas during Wednesday’s
operation. Police also found evidence that the group was plotting to
kill prominent figures including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
ErdoÄ?an, Former Chief of General Staff YaÅ?ar
BüyükanÄ&#x B1;t, Police Department Intelligence Unit
Chief Ramazan Akyürek, journalist Fehmi Koru, author Orhan
Pamuk and some politicians, including members of the pro-Kurdish
Democratic Society Party (DTP).
The fields brought to mind a large number of depots of NATO arms found
buried during an investigation launched by Italian prosecutor Felice
Casson, who discovered the existence of Operation Gladio, a NATO
stay-behind paramilitary force left over from the Cold War. In a panel
discussion he participated in in Ä°stanbul last April, Casson
said these weapons were found buried in cemeteries, under churches and
even in caves. Ergenekon is also thought to be a remnant from the
original Turkish Gladio, which was founded against a possible Soviet
invasion during the Cold War, but later turned into an organization
trying to cut off Turkey’s ties with the West. The retired generals
arrested in the Ergenekon investigation seem to have an anti-European
Union and anti-NATO stance favoring a closer relationship between
Turkey and Russia and Eurasian nations.
Analysts said on Friday that the buried weapons might shed light on a
number of murders committed in the GölbaÅ?ı area
prior to the Susurluk investigation of 1996, which started when a
former police chief, a southeastern tribal leader whose men were armed
by the state to fight separatist violence and an internationally
wanted mafia boss were involved in an accident near the small township
of Susurluk while riding in the same car. The police chief and the
mafia boss as well as his girlfriend, a former model, were killed in
the accident. No serious arrests followed the ensuing investigation,
which had exposed, for the first time in modern Turkish history, a
gang with links to the state.
Some of the most significant unsolved murders in the area were the
assassination of Yusuf Ekinci, a lawyer of Kurdish origin, and that of
retired Maj. Cem Ersever and his girlfriend. Investigators are
examining possible links between the GölbaÅ?ı
weapons and unsolved murders in the area in the ’90s.
Ergenekon suspects on the run
Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Mustafa Dönmez, an Ergenekon suspect whose
houses in Sakarya and Ankara were found to contain a stockpile of
bullets, hand grenades and weapons, is now reported to be a
fugitive. Police called Dönmez’s cell phone on Wednesday to
inform him that an arrest warrant had been issued for
him. Dönmez, who assured them he would go to a police station
"right away," disappeared shortly after the phone call. Police claim
that when they went at the Adapazarı Central Command on
Wednesday to capture Dönmez, gendarmes told them the area fell
under gendarmerie jurisdiction and that they would find
Dönmez. Later, the gendarmerie told police that they had been
unable to locate Dönmez and that they believed he had escaped.
Twenty-two hand grenades, five revolvers and a Kalashnikov rifle as
well as 8,300 bullets were found in a house belonging to the
lieutenant colonel in Sakarya. The search in another house belonging
to Dönmez in Ankara revealed three revolvers, two Kalashnikovs
and a pair of night-vision binoculars.
Thirty-seven people in total were detained in the latest wave of
Ergenekon detentions on Wednesday, including six active members of the
military as well as seven retired generals. In addition to
Dönmez, police also on Wednesday searched for Bedrettin Dalan,
a former mayor of the city of Ä°stanbul, but they soon
discovered that he was in the US. However, some newspapers claimed on
Friday that Dalan had fled to the US after being tipped off about the
Ergenekon operation.
Political clashes over Ergenekon
On Thursday, one day after the high-profile detentions, Chief of
General Staff Gen. Ä°lker BaÅ?buÄ? visited both
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an and President Abdullah
Gül, with no statement on the content of the talks other than
to say that they were indeed about the recent detentions in which some
retired generals and active duty officers were taken into
custody. Newspapers wrote yesterday that BaÅ?buÄ? was
seeking special treatment for members of the military. According to
sources that spoke to several newspapers, BaÅ?buÄ?
demanded that members of the military be summoned to the prosecutor’s
office instead of being taken into custody.
Sources also say BaÅ?buÄ? demanded that senior generals
HurÅ?it Tolon and Å?ener Eruygur, arrested last year as
part of the investigation, be released pending trial.
BaÅ?buÄ?’s visit on Thursday came after a six-hour meeting
of the force commanders on Wednesday evening, convened immediately
after the detentions.
10 January 2009, Saturday
TODAY’S ZAMAN Ä°STANBUL
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
