Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 4 2010
Police report links Cage plan to Ergenekon
A detailed report recently prepared by the Ä°stanbul Police Department
suggests that a number of planned attacks against civilians mentioned
in the Cage Operation Action Plan were devised by Ergenekon, a
clandestine terrorist organization accused of plotting to overthrow
the government.
According to the 200-page report, the killings of Armenian-Turkish
journalist Hrant Dink, Catholic priest Father Andrea Santoro and three
Christians in Malatya were planned by Ergenekon in order to create
chaos in the country that would prepare the necessary grounds for a
coup d’état.
The Cage plan was retrieved from a CD seized in the office of retired
Maj. Levent BektaÅ?, an Ergenekon suspect, in April. The CD exposed the
group’s plans to assassinate Turkey’s prominent 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 Cage plan calls the killings of Santoro, Dink and the three
Christians an `operation.’ According to the police report, the
mastermind behind the Cage plan was Ä°brahim Å?ahin, the former deputy
chief of the National Police Department’s Special Operations Unit.
Å?ahin is currently under arrest on charges of Ergenekon membership.
During an interrogation last year, Å?ahin said he was ordered by a
general to assemble members of the Special Operations Unit into death
squads to assassinate community leaders.
The discovery of the Cage plan came shortly after the exposure of a
large cache of munitions on land owned by the Ä°stek Foundation in
Ä°stanbul’s Poyrazköy district. The munitions are believed to have been
buried underground to be used for the planned assassinations.
The Cage plan also contained a horrifying planned act of terror
against young students visiting the Rahmi M. Koç Museum. According to
the plan, several blocks of TNT and other explosives placed at the
bottom of a submarine exhibited at the museum would be detonated while
a large group of students was visiting the museum.
The police report underlined that a number of hand-drawn maps seized
in Å?ahin’s house showing the location of munitions buried underground
were very similar to those seized during an operation launched to
uncover the Cage plan. The plan document included a long list of
weapons to be used in the scheme. The list showed the scale of threat
which Turkey would have faced.
Since the launch of the investigation into Ergenekon, which began in
2007, wide range of weapons and munitions have been uncovered, either
buried underground or even hidden underwater and at times abandoned on
roadsides. The secret caches included anti-tank weapons, assault
rifles, hand grenades, flame throwers and explosives. The Turkish
Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation (MKE) confirmed that
these weapons belonged to the military. However, the military has been
silent about the weapons listed in the Cage plan.
04 January 2010, Monday
SALIH SARIKAYA Ä°STANBUL