MUMCU WAS PROBING OCALAN-MIT LINK PRIOR TO DEATH, SAYS DAUGHTER

Today’s Zaman
26 January 2010, Tuesday

Secularist investigative journalist Ugur Mumcu might have been killed
due to his investigation of potential links between the National
Intelligence Organization (MÄ°T) and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK), according to his daughter Ozge Mumcu, who spoke with
journalists on Sunday during a commemoration ceremony marking the
17th anniversary of Mumcu’s death.

Mumcu, who was killed by a bomb planted in his automobile on Jan. 24,
1993, was commemorated in various ceremonies across the country on
Sunday. The assailants still remain unknown.

Speaking at a ceremony held at Ugur Mumcu Park, located across from
the Mumcu house in Ankara’s GaziosmanpaÅ~_a district, Ozge Mumcu said
her father was investigating documents that might have proven links
between PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and the MÄ°T. "I came to understand
how close my father was to the truth as the years passed. He probably
was investigating evidence proving that Ocalan was a MÄ°T agent. His
murder was never thoroughly investigated."

When Mumcu was killed in 1993, authorities initially put the blame
on religious fundamentalist groups. However, as the investigation
into the clandestine coup plotting group Ergenekon unwound, sinister
links behind the murder started to appear. Others, like his daughter,
have claimed that Mumcu was a victim of the PKK, as he reportedly was
investigating an alleged arms sale to this group by a clique inside
the gendarmerie.

Ozge Mumcu said ideological clashes intensified in the ’90s, partly
because of assassinations in those years, which were common. "Most of
these murders were blamed on Islamic organizations. They used them
as the scapegoat, as that was the big scare at the time. When Hrant
Dink was killed, they wanted to use his Armenian identity. These are
all attacks that would foment chaos in society. We should look and
see who benefits from them."