‘Cosmic room’ search to continue, General Staff announces

The General Staff released a statement yesterday saying the search was being carried out in accordance with the law, noting that it was likely to be lengthy. The archive, called the “cosmic room,” is used to store documents that are classified as state or military secrets. The search began on Saturday with a warrant issued by the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court, despite resistance from military officers. Officers from the General Staff Central Command also participated in the search. Yesterday's search began at 10:45 a.m. when the prosecutors arrived at the Special Forces Command in Ankara's Kirazlıdere district, following the third day of searching, which had ended at 2:25 a.m. on Tuesday night. The Ankara 11th High Criminal Court judge who had issued the warrant also participated in the search.

In related developments, the commander of the Special Forces' Tactical Mobilization Group applied to prosecutors, calling for a press ban on the search under the Code Criminal Procedures (CMK), Article 125, which calls for similar measures in relation to state secrets.

However, the Ankara 12th High Criminal Court rejected the appeal yesterday. Also yesterday, eight military officers detained on suspicion of attempting to assassinate Deputy Prime Minister Arınç were brought to the Ankara Courthouse, where they testified to prosecutors.

Meanwhile, computers of the officers detained in the Arınç assassination probe were also examined. Investigators copied the hard drives of the eight computers. This was only possible on Sunday, as cyber crimes officers were not allowed in with the prosecutors earlier. Seven computers were searched in this process; those of Col. Yusuf A., Col. Erkan Yılmaz B., Major İbrahim G., Cpt. Osman D., Lt. Nuh C. and two non-commissioned officers. It was not clear why seven computers were copied, as eight officers are under detention. The cloned hard drives will be examined to establish whether there have been attempts to destroy files on the computer and to retrieve some of the data that might have been erased since Friday, although a complete recovery of data seems to be technically impossible.

As the search of two top-secret rooms at the Ankara headquarters of the Tactical Mobilization Group continued on Tuesday, civilian prosecutors looked for any documents mentioning an assassination plan against Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç.

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 eight soldiers were detained. 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, documents found at the home of an ex-army officer, retired Maj. Fikret Emek, one of the prime suspects in the case against Ergenekon, a clandestine gang charged with plotting to overthrow the government, shed some light on what the unit did as part of its secret activities to protect the country.

The document found in Emek’s house is a list of 914 army officers, categorizing these individuals according to their perceived political, ideological or religious standing. Emek is also retired from the Special Forces Command. On June 26, 2006, a sizeable arms cache was found in his mother’s Eskişehir home as part of the investigation.

In addition, Rasim Öz, a lawyer and witness of the events of May 1, 1977, known as Bloody May Day when 36 died as a result of gunfire by unidentified assailants, claimed yesterday that Bloody May Day was the work of the “deep state,” referring to illegal and quasi-official mechanisms clustered in the military. Öz made a statement yesterday, calling on Ergenekon prosecutors to include the 1977 case in the ongoing trial.