Susurluk's Çatlı was killed by Ergenekon, new witness claims

According to a witness whose testimony is included in the new dossiers, Abdullah Çatlı, an ultranationalist criminal who was thought to have died in the 1996 Susurluk car crash, which exposed links between the Turkish state, the criminal underworld and Turkish security forces, was killed by Ergenekon. The Susurluk incident revealed that Çatlı, a leader of the ultranationalist Grey Wolves group, worked for the state.

Hüseyin Kocadağ, a former police chief; Sedat Bucak, a southeastern tribal leader whose men were armed by the state to fight separatist violence; and Çatlı, an internationally wanted mafia boss, were involved in an accident near the small township of Susurluk while riding in the same car. Kocadağ, Çatlı and his girlfriend, a former model, were allegedly killed in the accident. No arrests of major figures were made as a result of the ensuing investigation, which had actually exposed, for the first time in modern Turkish history, a gang with links to the state. Retired Brig. Gen. Veli Küçük, who is currently in jail as an Ergenekon suspect, was detained but later released during the Susurluk investigation.

The dossiers contain the testimony of a secret witness, referred to as Kıskaç (Pincer), who told the prosecution on Nov. 30, 2008, that a senior gendarmerie master sergeant he identified as Hakan, who worked for JİTEM -- an illegal organization founded inside the gendarmerie accused of hundreds of atrocities against civilians in the Southeast -- revealed to him that Çatlı had not died in the accident. Kıskaç said Hakan had told him: "Abdullah Çatlı's arm was broken in the accident. We killed him by bludgeoning him to death." JİTEM is believed to be the most important armed branch of Ergenekon.

Kıskaç, who asked Hakan why Bucak had not been killed by JİTEM's men, received the reply: "This man has 14,000 armed men; he has control over a route from Antep to Silopi. We don't want to lose this route." Hakan also said the accident had been arranged by JİTEM and that Osman Gürbüz, another Ergenekon suspect, had followed the Mercedes Çatlı and the others were in.

"They told me to work for them. They said they'd guarantee me immunity. JİTEM was a unit established to fight terrorism, but they are dealing with every kind of business but terrorism, including extortion and assassinations," Kıskaç told the prosecution.

There are 248 dossiers containing evidence backing up the allegations brought by the prosecution against the suspects in the Ergenekon trial. The new documents reveal that retired Gen. Şener Eruygur, who was arrested but then released pending trial after suffering a severe fall and sustaining cerebral injuries, ordered his assistants to clean up any incriminating documents that might be found in his office during police raids. The dossiers include transcripts of a phone conversation between Eruygur and a woman named Nermin, apparently Eruygur's secretary. In response to the woman's questions regarding certain documents, Eruygur says: "Tear them apart; throw them away." The dossiers reveal that Eruygur hid a large number of confidential documents crucial to the organization's coup plots in his office.

Allegations put forward by a newsweekly accusing former military commanders of plotting a coup d'état have also made their way into the second indictment of the Ergenekon trial. The allegations leveled in the summer of 2007 by the Nokta newsweekly -- which claimed that in 2004 now-retired Adm. Özden Örnek and the four force commanders at the time had made plans to stage military coups to be named Ayışığı (Moonlight) and Sarıkız (Blonde Girl) -- will be brought before a court for the first time. The new dossiers include excerpts from Örnek's diary as well as personal notes of Ergenekon suspect and Cumhuriyet daily columnist Mustafa Balbay. Gen. Eruygur is accused of being the mastermind behind Moonlight and Blonde Girl, as well as two other coup plans the group called Yakamoz (Sea Sparkle) and Eldiven (Glove).

The documents also reveal that the group gathered intelligence and compiled lists of information about Justice and Development Party (AK Party) politicians. In these lists, some AK Party members are tagged with labels such as "Kurdish-Arab hybrid" and "Kurdish rebel Sheik Said's grandson." Next to one of these figures, a statement reads, "He is a leader in the mobilization of Kurdish population movements."

The organization also compiled detailed information on the politicians closest to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, including Mücahid Arslan, Hüseyin Besli, Cüneyt Zapsu, Egemen Bağış and Ömer Çelik. In addition to biographies and detailed information on these politicians, Eruygur's team also categorized AK Party politicians into two groups -- supporters of Erdoğan and supporters of Abdullah Gül.

The new dossiers also include evidence that generals planned to ban civilian political activity for at least two decades.

The second indictment accuses Eruygur of "establishing or leading an armed terrorist organization, recording private information of various individuals illegally, attempting to overthrow the government, influencing the judiciary, inciting people to armed revolt and attempting to destroy the Turkish Parliament." The prosecution demands three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole and an additional 142 to 246 years in jail without the possibility of parole.

Other evidence included in the dossiers reveals that the generals' coup-plotting group within the military, named the Republican Work Group (CÇG), actively supported Turkish Cypriot politician Rauf Denktaş.

Dink murder suspect and Dalan

The dossiers also include concrete evidence showing that Professor Ercüment Ovalı, who was arrested last year on suspicion of possible links to the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, had frequent meetings with fugitive Ergenekon suspect and former İstanbul Mayor Bedrettin Dalan. This information was obtained from a phone conversation between Ergenekon suspect Kemal Aydın and Ovalı.

'I found Eruygur collapsed on the floor'

Retired Gen. Eruygur suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on Sept. 17, 2008, at Kandıra Prison, where he was jailed at the time. The new documents also include Ergenekon suspect and retired Gen. Hurşit Tolon's testimony to the prosecution about Eruygur's fall in prison, in which he sustained a head injury. In his testimony, Tolon is quoted as saying: "In the morning, I opened my eyes to a loud noise. I heard a noise between a snore and a grumble. The grumbling wasn't too far away. I got up, thinking I had fallen asleep in the wrong place. When I reached the stairs, I saw that he was lying on his back right at the spot where the stairs turned 90 degrees to the right, with his legs open like a V. I could see that he was breathing. I ran down the stairs. I tried to get him up, but he didn't come to. I started banging on the door so a security officer would come. One came within a minute or two."