Questions persist after discovery of munitions-laden truck in Ankara

Late on Wednesday, Ankara police stopped a truck in Ümitköy upon receipt of an e-mail from an unidentified individual. A search of the vehicle showed that it was filled with weapons and hand grenades. The driver told the police he was taking the munitions to the Special Forces Command in Gölbaşı. He also showed documentation indicating that the truck had been hired by the TSK. According to the driver, the explosives were being taken to the military facility in a civilian vehicle for security reasons. A noncommissioned officer and a corporal in civilian attire were also in the truck.

Doubtful about the initial information from the driver, the police called civilian prosecutors to the scene. Staff from the central command also arrived at the scene. According to reports, the truck contained many weapons and around 900 hand grenades, the serial numbers of which had been scratched out. There was, however, no immediate official announcement to verify the claim.

Following an initial examination of the truck by prosecutors, the vehicle was taken to the Ankara Police Department under heavy police escort. Prosecutors interrogated the three passengers from the truck about the weapons and hand grenades. They said the truck had set off from the western province of Muğla. However, they did not respond to the question of why such a huge amount of explosives were being transferred from one city to another without strict security measures and in an unescorted civilian vehicle.

ADR expert: Vehicles carrying explosives should be escorted by police According to Ernail Hayırlı, an expert on the European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR), the munitions-filled truck should have been escorted by police. “Forty-six countries have signed this agreement. Turkey is expected to sign it soon. In accordance with this agreement, explosives need to be carried by road by drivers who have licenses proving that they are capable of such transport and under police escort. Vehicles carrying explosives should use a different route from other vehicles in order to prevent any danger on roads,” he told Today’s Zaman. Meanwhile, an e-mail that reportedly enabled the discovery of the truck suggests that the weapons and hand grenades would be used to foment chaos in eastern cities on March 21 during Nevruz, the Kurdish New Year’s celebration. According to the e-mail, the munitions were supposed to be sent to eastern Turkey in the coming days. “Those were dirty rifles collected from military staff after a civilian search at the cosmic room. They are to be taken to Ankara. Among them are almost all sorts of guns and rifles. You will probably shed light on Turkey’s darkest incidents through examining those weapons,” read the e-mail. “Absolutely control the truck carrying those weapons. The first stop of the truck will be Ankara. Their barrels and serial numbers will be changed there. Then, they will be distributed in eastern and southeastern cities. Blood will be shed during Nevruz. Incidents, starting in Muş, will spread to the whole country,” cautioned the e-mail. Prosecutors are currently working to find out who sent the e-mail to the Ankara Police Department.

In the meantime, Muğla Provincial Gendarmerie Commander Col. Salih Karataş announced that the weapons and grenades in the truck belong to the TSK. “All the munitions belong to the TSK. They have the required documents for the transfer. They also have serial numbers on them. All the munitions are registered to the TSK inventory,” he remarked. No immediate statement was available from the General Staff.

Other military sources also stated that 12 military vehicles with civilian number plates had carried munitions to the Turkish capital before. “This is a routine practice. We prefer such methods of transfer of explosives in order to avoid risks,” they noted. Sources also said Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Arslan Güner was following the developments related to the munitions-laden truck and that Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ had been informed about the incident.

A group of military personnel also visited the Ankara Police Department during the interrogation of the driver of the truck, the noncommissioned officer and the corporal. There were also reports that prosecutors wanted to send the weapons and hand grenades to a criminal laboratory for examination, an idea members of the military strongly opposed.

Bomb squads who examined the explosives at the police department reported that the hand grenades were US made. According to those experts, however, the TSK mainly uses hand grenades from the state-owned Turkish Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation (MKE). “The grenades were carefully camouflaged in the truck. They were hidden amongst packages of A4 paper,” they added.

According to the Regulation on Transfer of Explosives, the armed forces shall request a police escort for transfer of large amounts of munitions from one city to another. However, no such request was received by the Ankara Police Department, police sources reported. The Muğla Police Department also announced that they had no prior information about the truck and the munitions. “No one requested an escort for the truck from us,” a statement from the department read.

Such transfers cannot be done by a civilian driver and vehicle, according to the regulation.

Reminiscent of unearthed weapons

The incident with the truck was highly reminiscent of hidden stockpiles of ammunition that were discovered in shanty houses or buried underground since the start of the investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine group charged with plotting to overthrow the government.

Since the start of the Ergenekon investigation in July 2007, hand grenades, explosives, light anti-tank weapons (LAW), rocket launchers, Kalashnikov rifles, assault rifles, thousands of bullets and various other munitions have been discovered in secret depots or buried underground in various cities. One of the greatest discoveries came when caches of arms were uncovered last April in İstanbul’s Poyrazköy area during excavations to uncover more ammunition and weapons as part of the Ergenekon investigation.

Claims emerged that these weapons and munitions were taken out of the arms depots of the TSK. The military, however, strongly denied the claims, saying that the TSK does not even have the slightest connection to the weapons and munitions discovered, adding that it has not buried any munitions since 1986, when a General Staff decision banned such practices.

Retired Gen. Haldun Solmaztürk told the private NTV station that the transfer of explosives with a civilian truck was totally “ordinary.” “This is a routine practice. Such transfers are done all across Turkey. If the ammunition can fit into a vehicle, it is transferred in this way. In addition, this is a safe transfer. The explosives will not explode even if the vehicle carrying them has an accident en route. Civilian vehicles are preferred for such transfers for safety reasons. They do not attract attention while in traffic. Plus, there were military members in the vehicle. They were armed,” he said, adding that police departments were informed about the truck and explosives. “If police officers who had stopped the truck asked their departments instead of calling prosecutors, they would have learned that the department was already informed about the transfer,” Solmaztürk noted.

Republican People’s Party (CHP) parliamentary group deputy chairman Kemal Anadol complained about the stopping of the truck filled with ammunition by the Ankara police, saying that the move was part of a plan by a “single center.” “There is a control center. That center details all plans,” he said.