Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 12 2009

Parliament encourages Turkey to dig deeper into Ergenekon

Members of the European Parliament held a debate yesterday on the 2008
accession negotiations with Turkey as they prepared to vote on a
report that calls on Turkey to seriously focus on the Ergenekon
network’s probable role in unresolved murders, including the
assassination of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink in January
2007.

Ergenekon, a neo-nationalist group accused of involvement in plans to
stage a violent uprising against the government, was discovered at the
end of an investigation that came upon the heels of a police raid in
June 2007 which uncovered an arms depot in a house in ?Ä?°stanbul’s
?Ã?mraniye district. The prosecutor in the Ergenekon case has said
the group worked to create disorder and chaos through various violent
acts so that the public would be willing to accept a military
intervention to restore order.

The group is suspected of involvement in the murder of three Christian
missionaries in Malatya in 2007; the 2006 murder of a priest in the
northeastern city of Trabzon; the murder of Dink, editor-in-chief of
the bilingual Agos newspaper in 2007; a 2006 attack on the Council of
State; and a grenade attack on the Cumhuriyet daily in 2006.

The debate at the European Parliament came a day after the ?Ä?°stanbul
Prosecutor’s Office submitted on Tuesday an additional indictment in
the trial of Ergenekon, with members from various state agencies, the
military, politics, the business world, academia, the media and other
civilian sectors, charged with plotting to overthrow the government.

Currently, 86 suspects have been indicted in a 2,455-page document,
made public last summer. The trial started in late October of last
year. However, since the completion of the first indictment, dozens of
others have been detained and arrested, though some have been released
pending trial.

The new indictment is expected to bring charges against some of the
suspects recently detained during the ongoing investigation.

The European Parliament "welcomes the beginning of the trial against
those accused of being members of the Ergenekon criminal organization,
encourages the authorities to continue investigations and to fully
uncover the organization’s networks which reach into the state
structures, is concerned about reports regarding the treatment of
defendants in this case, urges the Turkish authorities to provide them
with a fair trial and to adhere strictly to the principles of the rule
of law," says the report, drawn up by Dutch Christian Democrat
European parliamentarian Ria Oomen-Ruijten.

Last month, members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European
Parliament adopted the draft report by 65 votes to one, with four
abstentions.

The report by Oomen-Ruijten also asserts that "for Turkey and its 71
million people, the main concern is the slowdown in reform for the
third successive year," calling on Ankara to prove its political will
for the reform process.

12 March 2009, Thursday
TODAY’S ZAMAN ANKARA / ESKI?Å?EHIR