The Vatan daily claimed on Monday that Ergenekon prosecutor Zekeriya Öz had stated that the CD has been missing for more than one year. An Ankara criminal court ruled in April of last year to merge the Council of State attack with the ongoing Ergenekon trial after an official investigation established that Ergenekon may have played a role in the 2006 shooting. The attack left a senior judge dead.
The CD was reportedly sent to the İstanbul Prosecutor’s Office by unidentified individuals and stands as evidence to the links between Council of State hit man Alparslan Arslan and retired Gen. Veli Küçük, who is currently under arrest for suspected membership in Ergenekon. The CD features a photo of the two side by side. Prosecutors believe the photo is an open indication of cooperation between the hit man and the retired general.
The ultranationalist Aydınlık magazine, however, claims that the photo that appears to show Arslan next to Küçük featured not Arslan but an Azerbaijani citizen. According to Vatan, the CD was lost at the time Vural Ergül, a lawyer for two Ergenekon suspects, asked the İstanbul 13th High Criminal Court, which is hearing the Ergenekon trial, for a copy of the CD to examine the accusations against his clients. In his reply on Jan. 11, Öz said efforts to locate the CD were still under way and that the İstanbul Prosecutor’s Office would inform the court when it was found.
The CD stands as evidence of many claims against Ergenekon defendants mentioned in an appendix to the indictment.
“If they give us the CD, a technical examination can determine what computer it was prepared on. We asked [the İstanbul Prosecutor’s Office] for the CD 14 times. But the CD has yet to be found. The CD was sent to the prosecutor’s office, according to official documents. No name or signature was included on its envelope. We claim that the CD was sent to the prosecutor’s office by Mehmet Eymür,” the lawyer told Vatan.
Eymür is a former intelligence official who was reportedly implicated in a number of scandals. He demanded through his lawyer to be included as a party in the Ergenekon case last year, but the judges rejected his demand.
