ERGENEKON COUP PLANNER CALLED ARMY FRIENDS FOR HELP
Today’s Zaman
Jan 30 2008
Turkey
A number of suspects detained under suspicion of close connections
with the Ergenekon terror organization were taken to a court in
Ýstanbul on Saturday.
A prime suspect in the Ergenekon terrorist organization case phoned
higher-ranking military generals and certain judges but failed to
secure the help he sought, Yeni Þafak reported on Tuesday.
Last week, 33 members of a gang with links to the deep-state were
arrested in simultaneous police raids in various cities as part of
an investigation into an arms depot found in Ýstanbul in June of last
year. The investigation of the Ergenekon gang has resulted in evidence
that the gang was planning a coup d’etat for 2009. With the purpose
of creating chaos in the country and thus an atmosphere suitable
for a military takeover, the group staged a number of attacks and
murders whose perpetrators remain unknown as well as others in which
the assailants have been found.
Evidence in the investigation suggests Ergenekon organized an attack
on the Council of State in 2006; the murder of Armenian-Turkish
journalist Hrant Dink in January; and the murder of three Christians
in the city of Malatya in April of last year . Gang administrators
are also key figures in the Susurluk accident, a 1996 car crash that
revealed links between a police chief, a convicted ultranationalist
fugitive and a member of Parliament.
Yeni Þafak wrote that when Ýstanbul Police Department counterrorism
squads were banging on the door of the Harbiye apartment of retired
Gen. Veli Kucuk in the early morning hours of Jan. 22 to take him
into police custody, he placed calls on his cell phone before leaving
his home with the police officers. The police, who were monitoring
Kucuk’s phone conversations, say Kucuk made eight phone calls to
"influential friends," telling them that the police were waiting at
the door to take him into custody, and asked for help — but his
pleas for help were rejected. Police sources did not give further
details on the content of the phone calls.
Phone conversations between gang members
A plot to kill Turkey’s only Nobel Prize-winning author, Orhan Pamuk,
was also among Ergenekon’s plans. Newspapers printed transcripts of
recorded phone conversations between Spc. Sgt. Muhammed Yuce, Ret.
Col. Fikri Karadað and Selim Akkurt, the trigger-man hired to do
the job, whose phones were tapped with a court order. Officials say
that Yuce, who was also arrested for being part of the Ergenekon
organization, said in a phone conversation with the hit-man that he
had spoken to Karadað about the planned Pamuk assassination. Yuce told
Akkuþ that an Ýstanbul businessman would financially support them as
would a prosecutor and a judge in Ýstanbul’s Kadýkoy district. Akkurt,
who spoke in a worried tone, is quoted as saying he was concerned
he might end up like Mehmet Ali Aðca, a deep-state assassin who also
shot the pope in the ’70s. Akkurt expressed a desire to be like O.S.,
the teenager who shot Dink in January of last year, saying: "He has
trillions of lira in his account. Plus, those around him have become
heroes." In response to these words, Yuce was quoted as having said:
"You, me and Fuci will take care of Orhan Pamuk. We will have YTL 2
million in our accounts. Are you with me on this one?" Akkurt is heard
giving an affirmative response to Yuce’s question in the recordings.
Shortly after his conversation with Akkurt, Yuce sent a text message
to a relative in which he wrote: "We will take care of Orhan after
the conference. They will put in [YTL] 5 billion into our account.
They will give us a gas station and a villa. Sedat Peker will take
care of us while we’re in jail." Peker is an ultranationalist mafia
leader with apparent links to deep-state figures.
Meanwhile, Karadað is quoted in the transcripts as frequently uttering
the phrases "We are losing the country" and "We need to set up a
new army." However, when Zekeriya Oz, the prosecutor on the case,
asked about the meaning of the phone conversations, Yuce replied,
"We were only joking around on the phone."
The investigation so far into the Ergenekon organization — 14 of
whose members were arrested Saturday in one of the biggest operations
ever against deep-state-linked groups in Turkey — has revealed that
the organization was working to create a chaotic atmosphere so that
its counterparts in the military could overthrow the government. All
in all, 28 Ergenekon members are currently under arrest.
An Ýstanbul court has accused the members of the Ergenekon gang
of certain bombing incidents and attacks in the past two years, of
inciting people to revolt, establishing a terrorist organization,
of leading that terrorist organization and of membership in the
terrorist organization.
Documents seized during the investigation into the gang, whose members
include former military officers, some of them high-ranking, revealed
that they were planning to create complete chaos in the country to
prepare fertile ground for a military coup d’etat in 2009.
Some of the gang members against whom charges have been brought include
Kucuk, who is also the alleged founder of a clandestine and unofficial
intelligence unit in the gendarmerie, the existence of which is denied
by officials; controversial ultranationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz,
who filed countless suits against Turkish writers and intellectuals
who were at odds with Turkey’s official policies; Karadað, a retired
army colonel; and Sevgi Erenerol, the press spokesperson for a group
called the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate.
Latest in the investigation
On Monday, the case’s public prosecutor objected to the release
of nine individuals taken into custody earlier on in the Ergenekon
investigation but later freed by the court. Late in the evening on
Monday, the prosecution appealed the release of lawyer Fuat Turgut,
who is currently the legal counsel of a suspect in the Dink murder,
daily Akþam columnist Guler Komurcu, Asým Demir, Raif Gorum, Emir
Caner Yiðit, Tanju Okan, Yaþar Aslankoylu, Anatoli Medjan and Atilla
Aksu. Representatives of Kerincsiz also appealed his arrest. The
Ýstanbul 13th Higher Criminal Court will review the appeals from
both sides.
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