We believed that authoritarian centralism with an iron fist would be readily accepted by the people. For us, politics meant little. We wanted a strong and able administration/government to guide the people. We have never heard of the concept of “good governance.” We believed in discipline. Our masters wanted to discipline society, and we lent ourselves to being their whip.Before the coup I was arrested and interrogated. I confessed to my crime of assassinating Abdi İpekçi. I was put through an arduous interrogation. In fact I was interrogated 128 times for my crimes but never revealed the true intentions of my deeds or those who directed and paid me handsomely. I mocked the prosecutors and the interrogators. My political party set the scene for my visit to the forensic center, where I was taken while sick under detention. I was handed two pistols to force my way out. I was unsuccessful.
Then I was taken to the Maltepe Military Prison in Kartal, İstanbul. My colleagues struck a deal with the nationalist officers and got me out of that formidable fort wearing a private’s uniform and with a pistol in my hand. We paid a lot of money to those who let us out. Later I was provided with a forged passport to go to Iran, from where I returned to Turkey, once again to leave in a few months for Bulgaria. I was tried in absentia and sentenced to death.
While in Bulgaria I got in touch with intelligence organizations and mafiosi whose names I cannot give you. There I was given the task of murdering the pope (John Paul II) for 3 million marks. You know the rest. When I look back, I was always playing the trivial role of the triggerman in scripts written by others. But in my mind I was always the star of scripts of my own making. There I was, always the proud and honorable patriot I wanted to be. Otherwise, how could I bear the burden of my conscience or my multiple murders if I did not see myself as such during the long years I spent in solitary confinement?
After my release following 30 years in prison, which I entered at the age of 22 and got out at the age of 52, the military medical council examined me and diagnosed me as a sociopath, an acute case of associative disorder. Does this mean I am mad? The report says so and finds me dangerous to serve in the army, something I avoided in my youth. I served my country bearing arms and killing enemies as it wanted, so why should I be drafted? If they insist, I hereby declare that I am a conscientious objector. They may not believe me, but so what? I will still say it. In the past I have said I am the Messiah, I am not a devout Catholic. It worked. The pope I shot forgave me, and this helped the Italian president to pardon me and shorten my sentence.
But if I am dangerous for myself and society at large as the report states, why did they release me? Shouldn’t I be in a psychiatric ward? But then I am the rewarded executioner who belongs to the system that tries to maintain itself as it is. What do I care, as a nationalist who has paid a heavy price for his services? Now it is time to enjoy all the money I made during my career as an assassin. Hello freedom. Hello Turkey, I am back.
