CAGE INDICTMENT MERGED WITH MALATYA MISSIONARY MASSACRE CASE

Today’s Zaman
April 16 2010
Turkey

An indictment regarding the Cage Operation Action Plan, a suspected
Naval Forces Command plan targeting Turkey’s non-Muslim communities,
has been added to the case file on the 2007 Malatya murders, in which
three missionaries were brutally killed at a Christian publishing
house.

Guray Ertekin, the presiding judge at the Malatya 3rd High Court,
announced on Thursday that his court had received a copy of the
Cage indictment and added it to the case file. The decision marks
an important step in the course of the trial, during which lawyers
representing the victims’ families have continually insisted that
the murder of the three Christians was not a simple hate crime,
but something much deeper.

The Cage plan was retrieved from a CD seized in the office of
retired Maj. Levent BektaÅ~_, a suspect in the Ergenekon case, in
April. The CD exposed the group’s plans to assassinate prominent
Turkish non-Muslim figures and place the blame for the killings on
the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). The desired result was
an increase in internal and external pressure on the party, leading
to diminishing public support for the government.

The plan calls the killings of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink,
Catholic priest Father Andrea Santoro and three Christians in Malatya
an "operation." An antidemocratic group within the Naval Forces
Command aimed at fomenting chaos in society with those killings,
but complained that the plan failed when large groups protested the
killings in mass demonstrations.

"The operations created a large public outcry that non-Muslims
in the country were the target of reactionary groups. But society
stood by non-Muslims with a ‘We are all Armenians’ campaign. Now,
we will continue the propaganda, showing that the hand behind the
killings was the AK Party and reactionary organizations," the plan
reads. Erdal Dogan, one of the co-plaintiffs in the case, called for
light to be shed on the killings of the three Christians in Malatya.

In April 2007, Necati Aydın (35), Ugur Yuksel and German national
Tilman Geske (46) were tied to chairs, tortured and stabbed at the
Zirve Publishing House in Malatya before their throats were slit. The
publishing house they worked for printed Bibles and Christian
literature. Nine men have been charged with the murders, and seven
of them are in jail. Yesterday’s hearing was attended by the victims’
families, their lawyers and members of domestic and foreign press.

The first indictment on Ergenekon was also added to the Malatya case
in 2008. Evidence collected in the Ergenekon investigation suggested
that the brutal killings might have been organized by Ergenekon,
which is suspected of a large number of murders and bombings aimed
at creating chaos in the country to serve the organization’s ultimate
purpose of overthrowing the government.

The investigation into Ergenekon, a behind-the-scenes network
attempting to use social and psychological engineering to shape the
country in accordance with its own ultra-nationalist ideology, began
in 2007, when a house in Ä°stanbul’s Umraniye district that was being
used as an arms depot was discovered by police.

Points from additional Cage folders The additional folders of evidence
related to the Cage indictment were distributed to the suspects’
lawyers on Wednesday. They link the killings of Dink, Santoro and
the three Christians in Malatya with the Cage plan. According to the
evidence in the folders, the murders aimed to trigger the question
in society of whether non-Muslim residents in Turkey were safe.

"When the impact of the killings on society is examined, it is seen
that they were aiming to show that minority groups and non-Muslim
residents in the country were in danger in Turkey and as if they
were the target of reactionary groups. The killings also hoped to
make non-Muslims believe that they could be the target of similar
attacks at any time," the additional evidence argues.

It also indicates that the probe into the killing of Dink has not
gone beyond the capture of the suspected gunman, Ogun Samast.

Dink was gunned down on Jan. 19, 2007 in broad daylight in front
of the headquarters of the bilingual Armenian weekly Agos, where he
was editor-in-chief. Police arrested Samast and an associate, Yasin
Hayal, a few days later. There are a total of 20 suspects in the case,
eight of whom are currently under arrest. Following Dink’s murder,
numerous reports suggested that the police had been tipped off about
the planned assassination more than once before his murder but had
failed to prevent it.

"It has been revealed that the suspected murderer of Dink is Ogun
Samast, who was 17 years old at the time. In line with Samast’s
statements, the instigators and planners of the killing, Yasin Hayal
and Erhan Tuncel, were also captured. However, the probe has failed
to go deeper," the evidence notes.

Explosives placed in submarine The additional folders also include
evidence related to blocks of TNT and other explosives placed at
the bottom of a submarine exhibited at the Rahmi M. Koc Museum. The
explosives were found by police in July based on a plan outlined in
the Cage plot. They were to be detonated while a group of students
was visiting the museum.

According to the folders, the explosives were placed in an apparatus
that determined the depth of the submarine.

The insertion of the explosives into the submarine was reportedly
coordinated by retired Adm. Ahmet Feyyaz Ogutcu, whose name appears in
Cage plan documents as "the president." He was forced to retire after
a Supreme Military Council (YAÅ~^) meeting last August, reportedly
due to his suspected ties with an illegal organization. The Cage plan
suggests that the explosion should occur on a day when the museum
was visited by a large group of students. "Materials to be planted at
the museum have reached operators. We should increase the number of
visitors to the museum. C.G. will tell us when the visitor intensity
at the museum is the highest. We should accelerate publicity and
organization activities [regarding the museum] in schools. Students
are the most important elements of this project. We should confirm
the day of the operation," read one of the documents.

The additional evidence also points to Vice Adm. Kadir Sagdıc and
Rear Adm. Mehmet Fatih Ä°lgar as the "number two and three men"
behind the plot. The two were interrogated in February by Ä°zmir
prosecutors as part of the probe into Ergenekon.

The Cage indictment calls for jail sentences of up to 15 years for
Adm. Ogutcu, Vice Adm. Sagdıc and Rear Adm. İlgar on charges of
membership in a terrorist organization. It also seeks lengthy prison
sentences for 30 other defendants on similar charges. The suspects
will stand trial on June 15.

The folders also include the testimonies of naval officers whose names
are mentioned in the Cage indictment regarding an interrogation of
Cage suspects by the Naval Forces Command. According to the folders,
Emre Tepeli, a noncommissioned officer, told civilian prosecutors
conducting the Cage probe that they were questioned by two Naval
Forces Command officers about the suspected plan on Aug. 13, 2009.

"They asked me to tell all I knew about the Cage plan. I said I knew
nothing about it. They did not give me any information about the
plan," Tepeli said. Another noncommissioned officer, Huseyin Erol,
said he told the naval officers that he had heard about the Cage plan
when he was invited to the naval base in Gölcuk in August 2009. Col.

Levent Gulmen also said he was questioned by the Naval Forces Command
about the plan.