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Prosecutors investigate Ergenekon suspect’s attacker
Erhan Keskin was captured by the police with two guns on his person after firing into the ceiling on Saturday evening at a hospital where Ergenekon suspect retired Gen. Levent Ersöz is undergoing treatment. Keskin was referred to the İstanbul Courthouse in Beşiktaş on Monday. In his testimony, Keskin said he was in the hospital to visit a relative named Yusuf Bakırcı, whom the police were unable to locate in hospital records. The investigators are now examining Keskin’s phone records to establish the contacts he made prior to his detention. Fikret Seçen, one of the prosecutors assigned to the Ergenekon investigation, heard Keskin’s testimony in court.
Ersöz is undergoing treatment at the İstanbul University’s faculty of medicine infectious diseases department, reportedly for a deadly flesh-eating bacteria infection, which he claimed to have contracted at a hospital after surgery.
Investigators have also conducted searches in two houses where Keskin, a retired special sergeant, stayed in İstanbul. His assignments during his time in the military are also being investigated. Prosecutors are trying to establish whether Keskin and Ersöz’s assignments have overlapped or coincided at any point in the past.
According to witnesses, Keskin entered the hospital on Saturday saying he was there to visit a relative. However, when the security staff found there was no one by the name given by Keskin in the hospital, they asked him what he was doing. Keskin, who then started running, opened fire at the ceiling. He was then detained by police.
Controversy about Ersöz
Some believe Ersöz is not really suffering from a flesh-eating bacteria infection as has been claimed by his lawyers, but that there are attempts to keep him out of the Ergenekon trial currently being heard by the İstanbul 13th High Criminal Court and out of jail, where he was being held with other defendants in the trial. According to these speculations, some high-ranking generals are trying to keep Ersöz silent.
Investigators also note that two guns and a blank cartridge were found on Keskin when he was detained at the hospital, indicating that he planned to hand in the blank gun cartridge to pre-empt being frisked. Meanwhile, witnesses note that he yelled out, “The colonel sent me here,” which might be a message to Ersöz, investigators suspect.
In his later testimony, he said he had nothing to do with Ersöz and was visiting a relative. “I just opened fire when they treated me like that,” he said.
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