His inclusion on the list was cited as one of the pieces of evidence proving that the document was an outcome of a personal problem [between him and the police] and groundless. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Saçan was the intelligence staff member about whom the media wrote the most. He had to face a number of accusations, ranging from torture and corruption to taking secret documents out of the department. He was discharged from the department and a number of lawsuits were filed against him.The request sent by his superior, Police Chief Hasan Özdemir, to the ministry upon his being relieved of duty is of interest. Özdemir noted: "He has an unhealthy personality with psychological problems. Because he has become a focus of hostility from all in the department, we are unable to cooperate and coordinate with other units and staff." After being discharged from duty, he kept his fame alive by penning pieces for ultranationalist Web sites whose owners were arrested in connection with the Ergenekon case.
He came to the agenda once more with the Ergenekon investigation. Saçan was the first person to detain and interrogate Tuncay Güney, the black box of the Ergenekon terror organization, in 2001 and who seized the documents of the organizations. The important part of the story starts here.
New accusations that have been brought against him serve to hide elements of the Ergenekon investigation. He has tried to respond to these allegations in his series published by the Milliyet daily in which he blames the Chief Prosecutor's Office, his chiefs and other department managers in an attempt to exonerate himself. But he fails to make his words concrete and leaves the accusations vague. "I did my job, and I ensured the issuance of a subpoena by the Chief Prosecutor's Office" is the backbone of his argument. In explaining why he did not carry through to the end, Saçan writes that he referred the file to the police.
Despite how vocal he was with his remarks on the reactionary formations inside the police department, Saçan speaks very little about this case. He says, "I realized the danger and did my part, but attempts were made to conceal it." However, it is proper to ask why he failed to make these attempts known to the public or to take preventative measures. Can the police force re-assingn a duty ordered by the Chief Prosecutor's Office to another unit? Saçan could have returned the assignment to the chief prosecutor and asked for a new one instead of reassigning it to another unit.
When the job became concrete, he adopted a vague position. He asserts that the intelligence unit manager and his deputy at that time had no responsibility of providing their names. He argues that some police chiefs who had a disagreement with Veli Küçük -- a former general who is currently in jail, accused of being one of the leaders of Ergenekon -- wanted to give him an SUV. In response to the reactions, he announces that this person was retired Police Chief Ümit Aybek.
I think Saçan's most interesting remarks are those concerning the bombs found in Ümraniye which set off the Ergenekon investigation. Saçan says: "These things are not resolved with the explosives found in retired noncommissioned officer Oktay Yıldırım's home. I argue now that if you were to go to the homes of the police officers who served in special combat units against terrorism in the Southeast and East, you'll find more of the same materials you found in Yıldırım's house. Why? Because these men are obsessed with this. They regard what they took from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as a gain. The army provides these things because they fight against the PKK. They hide this equipment. Their houses are like weapon depots. This is something psychological. It has become a tradition."
I am curious about how he would explain the fact that these bombs were thrown at the Cumhuriyet daily. We will probably say this was also a habit. I liked this explanation; it gave me an explanation for some of the things that Saçan did.
