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European Parliament encourages Turkey to dig deeper into Ergenekon
Ergenekon, a neo-nationalist group accused of involvement in plans to stage a violent uprising against the government, was discovered at the end of an investigation that came upon the heels of a police raid in June 2007 which uncovered an arms depot in a house in İstanbul's Ümraniye district. The prosecutor in the Ergenekon case has said the group worked to create disorder and chaos through various violent acts so that the public would be willing to accept a military intervention to restore order.
The group is suspected of involvement in the murder of three Christian missionaries in Malatya in 2007; the 2006 murder of a priest in the northeastern city of Trabzon; the murder of Dink, editor-in-chief of the bilingual Agos newspaper in 2007; a 2006 attack on the Council of State; and a grenade attack on the Cumhuriyet daily in 2006.
The debate at the European Parliament came a day after the İstanbul Prosecutor's Office submitted on Tuesday an additional indictment in the trial of Ergenekon, with members from various state agencies, the military, politics, the business world, academia, the media and other civilian sectors, charged with plotting to overthrow the government.
Currently, 86 suspects have been indicted in a 2,455-page document, made public last summer. The trial started in late October of last year. However, since the completion of the first indictment, dozens of others have been detained and arrested, though some have been released pending trial.
The new indictment is expected to bring charges against some of the suspects recently detained during the ongoing investigation.
The European Parliament "welcomes the beginning of the trial against those accused of being members of the Ergenekon criminal organization, encourages the authorities to continue investigations and to fully uncover the organization's networks which reach into the state structures, is concerned about reports regarding the treatment of defendants in this case, urges the Turkish authorities to provide them with a fair trial and to adhere strictly to the principles of the rule of law," says the report, drawn up by Dutch Christian Democrat European parliamentarian Ria Oomen-Ruijten.
Last month, members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament adopted the draft report by 65 votes to one, with four abstentions.
The report by Oomen-Ruijten also asserts that "for Turkey and its 71 million people, the main concern is the slowdown in reform for the third successive year," calling on Ankara to prove its political will for the reform process.
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