The daily reported on Thursday that a committee of physicians prepared a health report for retired Brig. Gen. Levent Ersöz, who has been hospitalized at İstanbul University’s faculty of medicine for several months. The report was intended to ascertain whether Ersöz has serious problems preventing him from appearing at the Ergenekon trial. Doctors are, however, seemingly divided into two camps within the report.
While doctors in the faculty’s cardiology, neurology, infectious disease and plastic surgery departments said Ersöz has no health problems to prevent him from standing trial, doctors in the urology, physiotherapy and psychiatry departments said in the report that the retired general cannot appear at the trial for reasons of health.
Psychiatrists argued that Ersöz suffers from major depression and is a suicide risk.
Ali Rıza Dizdar, the lawyer for the retired general, called on judicial bodies to immediately release his client. “The health report shows that my client cannot stand trial in the [Ergenekon] case. Because of his health, he is not able to be sent to jail. His condition is getting worse. He is really very ill,” he noted.
The Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) is set to examine Ersöz and release a report on his condition. If the council rules that the retired officer is healthy enough to stand trial, he will appear in court to give testimony. Last year, the health committee of İstanbul University’s Çapa medical faculty examined Ersöz and decided that the former general has no serious health problems precluding his appearance at the Ergenekon trial.
Developing a heart condition after he was arrested, Ersöz also spent January and February of last year at Koşuyolu Hospital. He became sick again when he was returned to Silivri Prison. Refusing treatment at the Haseki Research and Teaching Hospital, he was hospitalized at the Gülhane Military Academy of Medicine (GATA). He once claimed that he had contracted necrotizing fasciitis, also known as a flesh-eating disease, at the hospital.
