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Investigation at military headquarters deepens
The search is being conducted under a warrant issued last Friday as part of an investigation into allegations of an assassination plot against Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç. Two Special Forces officers captured near Arınç’s home in Ankara were briefly detained and later released last week, but eight others were detained shortly after their release -- all were members of the Tactical Mobilization Group. The prosecution believes that two rooms at the Tactical Mobilization Group building where classified documents considered state secrets are archived might hold key evidence proving that some in the military were planning to assassinate political leaders. They attempted to start the search on Friday but were unable to enter the rooms until Saturday due to resistance from Special Forces officers. The search continued on Sunday and Monday.
On the third day, officials said the search could go on longer. According to unidentified military officials quoted by the Anka news agency, the two rooms, dubbed “the cosmic rooms” by the Turkish press, are likely to take a longer time to search as prosecutors are not allowed to take documents out of the rooms. Anka’s source said the cosmic rooms were the “center of the most secret operations being carried out for the livelihood of the Republic of Turkey.” None of the documents can be copied. The prosecutors have also been silent about the progress of the search.
Meanwhile, the owner of a rent-a-car company yesterday testified to the police as part of the investigation into an alleged plot to assassinate Arınç. The suspects detained so far had used vehicles rented from the Bumerang Rent-A-Car Company in Ankara’s Ayrancı neighborhood.
The owner of the company did not talk to the media, but an official for the company said all necessary information had been shared with police officers.
Last week two officers of the Tactical Mobilization Group of the Special Forces Command were captured as they stood watch near Arınç’s house in Ankara’s Çukurambar neighborhood. The General Staff said in a statement that the soldiers detained were taken to Ankara’s central command headquarters in the morning after state prosecutors searched a military base in the capital. The names of those being detained have not yet been released, but reports said Tactical Mobilization Group head Col. Y.A. was among them.
Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ and Land Forces Commander Gen. Işık Koşaner met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday after the detention of the eight soldiers. The search was allowed to proceed after this meeting, although the content of the meeting has not been shared with the press.
According to some reports, prosecutors insisted on a search after a phone conversation between a private identified as S.T. -- apparently one of the two officers released after being detained on suspicion of plotting to kill Arınç -- and his father. According to reports, the private, whose phone had been wiretapped as part of the investigation, told his father that he and his colleagues had burnt a large number of documents so as to destroy potentially incriminating evidence in the Tactical Mobilization Group building.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Erdoğan made a statement on Sunday on the weekend raids. He said: “All allegations are being investigated. Individual mistakes cannot be attributed to entire institutions. It won’t help anyone to make it appear as if there is conflict between different state agencies.”
He also asked: “Will the status quo will be changed, or will it remain the same? Will we just put up with this pain or overcome it? We as the government have decided to back the investigation until the end.”
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