Three people who sold Christian literature from the Zirve Publishing House were killed in the eastern province of Malatya on April 18, 2007.
Soldier G.S. said in the letter he sent to the Malatya 3rd High Criminal Court that he was told by Varol Bülent Aral, who was arrested in connection to the murders and was later released pending trial, to kill Baydemir, adding that he wants to explain everything he knows to the court.
“I submitted a petition to a public prosecutor’s office before about the murders at the Zirve Publishing House; however, I was ignored. Please pay attention to this letter. … I knew that the murders would take place from the very beginning. I got to know Varol Bülent Aral in 2006 at the Menzil Adıyaman Kahta teahouse. We became close, and then I started to travel to Adıyaman. … One day, he asked me if I knew JİTEM [an illegal and shady intelligence unit inside the military believed to be responsible for many crimes committed against residents of the Southeast in the 1990s]. I said I knew him. He told me that he was a JİTEM member. If I would help him, he told me that I could have everything. … We were talking through another person since Varol Bülent Aral was not using a telephone. He told me about Christian missionaries in Malatya. He said they deceived young people like us and tried to split our religion and country and that they must die. … The only reason that I am explaining this is that I am being threatened by Aral’s men. They asked me to kill Diyarbakır Mayor Baydemir. This is all I can say,” read some parts of the four-page letter.
Meanwhile, presiding judge Eray Gültekin had said during the last trial of the Zirve Publishing House murders that many people send them petitions in an attempt to attract attention.
