COURT SEEKS HELP TO LINK MURDERS IN TURKEY TO ‘DEEP STATE’
EuropeNews
Nov 19 2009
Denmark
MALATYA — Judges and prosecutors in the trial regarding the murder of
three Christians in this southeastern city in Turkey on Friday (Nov.
13) renewed their request for help from the Istanbul High Criminal
Court as reports mounted linking the slayings to top gendarmerie
officials.
The Malatya court judges overseeing hearings on the murders of Turkish
Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann
Geske requested that the Istanbul criminal court establish whether
the case was linked to the controversial cabal of military, political
and other influential figures, Ergenekon, which has allegedly been
trying to overthrow the government by upsetting Turkey’s peace.
For the last two and a half years prosecuting lawyers have established
the case that Emre Gunaydin, Salih Gurler, Cuma Ozdemir, Hamit Ceker
and Abuzer Yildirim, who were caught at the murder scene on April
18, 2007, were not acting independently but were incited by Turkey’s
"deep state," an expression of which is Ergenekon. Seven months ago the
Malatya court requested from prosecutors on the Ergenekon case at the
Istanbul high court to examine whether the two cases were connected.
They have not received a reply yet.
The court and various mainstream media have received informant letters
with specific names linking the murders to top gendarmerie officials.
Last month a Turkish newspaper received a list of payments the
gendarmerie made to informants to physically follow and collect
information on Christians in Malatya. Phone trees also show calls
made from the murderers to two alleged "middle-men," Huseyin Yelki
and Bulent Varol Aral, gendarmerie officials and other nationalist
figures in Malatya.
"We are expecting the Istanbul prosecutor to make a careful
investigation and give us a response and attest to the connections
the court has found," said prosecuting attorney Erdal Dogan on Friday
during a press briefing. "The actions of these men who are on trial
were not independent, and from the beginning we believed they were
organized by Ergenekon. Our theories have become more concrete, and
we are expecting the Istanbul prosecutor to investigate these closely,
establish the connections and give us a response."
Lawyers said that informant letters, testimonies and other evidence
have only confirmed their original suspicions. The most striking of
these is that the local gendarmerie forces were following activities
of Christians in Malatya in the months leading up to the murders and
afterwards yet did not stop the young men from stabbing and slashing
the three Christians to death.
"If you have been watching a small, tiny group so closely," said lawyer
Orhan Kemal Cengiz, "how could it be possible that you disregard
this murder? This is a legitimate question which requires ordinary
intelligence."
Last month the head of Istanbul police intelligence, Ramazan Akyurek,
was demoted amid allegations that he had neglected to investigate
three Christian murder cases between 2006 and 2007. When Turkish
news reporters asked Dogan whether prosecutors would make a request
to investigate whether Akyurek played a greater part in the murders,
he said that it was not out of the question.
The five young suspects were apprehended after Zirve Publishing Co.
workers went to the publishing house to find out why the three
Christian men were not answering their phones. Finding the door of
the office locked and getting no answer, they called police. In a
report prepared by Akyurek’s department, his staff claimed that the
murderers were apprehended thanks to phone tapping – which attorney
Dogan said is a lie.
"According to a report, they said that they had been listening to the
murderers’ phones and following them, and that that’s how they found
and arrested them," said Dogan. "You know this is a lie. The five
men were arrested haphazardly. We know that. We also know that the
gendarmerie was in fact listening to their conversations, but there’s
something interesting here: On the one hand they are listening to the
criminals’ phones, but on the other they couldn’t thwart the crime."
Prosecuting lawyers said that this makes both Akyurek’s department
and the gendarmerie guilty of being accomplices to the crime, and
that they should be tried along with the five young men.
"They should stand trial for not thwarting a crime and failing to
perform their duties," said Dogan. "They [gendarmerie and the police
intelligence security] should be tried under Article 8 of the penal
code as accomplices because they are connected. This is not a question
of removing someone from his position. They should stand trial with
the men who are now on trial."
Frustration The lawyers expressed frustration at being able to see
the bigger picture yet not having enough evidence to proceed, as well
as with having to wait on the Istanbul prosecutor for more evidence.
"It is crystal clear," said attorney Cengiz. "There is a much bigger
agenda and much more complex connections. We convinced everyone,
but we cannot do this beyond reasonable doubt; we can’t prove it. We
are blocked, actually."
Cengiz explained that as lawyers for the victims’ families, they are
not in a position to collect evidence.
"We are heavily dependent on what the prosecutor is doing, and
unfortunately they are not able to do much," he said.
Cengiz said that although the case was complicated and the Malatya
judges resisted their arguments at the outset of the hearings,
now they agree with the prosecuting lawyers that there is a broader
network behind the murders.
"Now they are very clear – they know what happened and what kind
of connections there are, etcetera, but they are fighting against
a dragon," said Cengiz. "So they desperately sent this request to
the prosecutor in Istanbul, hoping that it will be the Istanbul
prosecutor who will create these links rather than them. It should
be vice versa because they have all these details, but they are not
ready for this confrontation."
Cengiz explained that while the Malatya court has a better
understanding of the case than the Istanbul prosecutors, the advantage
of the Istanbul High Criminal Court is that it has the backing of the
Justice Ministry and is better positioned to take on the powers that
may be behind this and other murders.
"They can’t take the responsibility because this is just a tiny court
in the remote part of Turkey, so how can they confront the reality?"
he said.
The next hearing is set for Dec. 25, and prosecutors expect that by
then the 13th Istanbul High Criminal Court will have sent an answer
about connections of the murders to Ergenekon. They are also expecting
the prosecuting judge to demand all five of the young men be charged
with "three times life imprisonment," plus additional years for
organizing the crime.
"In our estimation, until now in a bizarre way the accused are acting
like they have been given assurances that they will be forgiven and
will get off the hook," Dogan commented on the comfortable demeanor
of the five men in court and their denial that others were behind the
murders. "In the last months we see a continuation of the attempts
to wreak havoc and chaos and overthrow the government. So we think
whoever is giving confidence to these guys is affecting them. It is
obvious to us that there is a group actively doing this. That means
they are still trying to create chaos."
Last week Ergenekon prosecutors found a hit-list consisting of 10
prominent representatives of minority groups as well as subscribers
to Armenian weekly newspaper Agos, whose editor-in-chief was murdered
three months before the Christians in Malatya. Cengiz explained that
Ergenekon members are obsessed with purging Turkey of non-Muslim
elements and non-Turkish minorities, which they see as a threat to
the state.
"They were trying to create chaos in Turkey, and of course they were
trying to send a clear message to members of non-Muslim groups that
they are not wanted in Turkey," said Cengiz of the way the three
Christians in Malatya were murdered. "They did it in a horrendous,
barbaric way. This was also part of the message. Everything was
planned but not by them, by other people. They are just puppets."
Further Evidence of Cabal This week Turkish news magazine Yeni
Aktuel published a five-page article with pictures chronicling
the "anti-terrorist" activities of a counter-guerilla team leader
identified only by his initials, K.T.
In the article, K.T. described how for years he and his team pursued
and killed members of the outlawed Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK).
Anti-guerilla activities in Turkey are paramilitary efforts managed
by the "deep state."
In K.T.’s account, he claimed that during his time in Malatya he met
with members of an ultra-nationalist group who talked about murdering
Hrant Dink, editor of Agos. Also during that time, members of the
group spoke about how those who distributed Bibles in Malatya had to be
"punished."
One of the members of this group was a high school teacher called "O."
The teacher said that he arranged to be out of town before the Malatya
murders, because police were following him and he wanted to make sure
that they could not connect him to the Malatya murders.