Families of fallen soldiers angered by Heron scandal

In the phone conversation, a member of the air forces asks another to down Turkish Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to protect PKK terrorists.

The voice recording was picked up by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) in 2007 but made public only two weeks ago by the Bugün daily. In that year, 12 soldiers died in a PKK attack on a military outpost in the village of Dağlıca in Hakkari’s Yüksekova district on Oct. 4. The phone conversation took place 15 days before the Dağlıca attack. Celalettin Gürdal, the brother of Sr. Sgt. Selçuk Gürdal, who died in the PKK raid, said he asked the military prosecutor’s office to carry out a thorough investigation of the Dağlıca attack countless times, but to no avail. Gürdal, who says the military prosecutor’s office has not responded to any of his petitions, states that he no longer has confidence in the military prosecutor. “I will file charges with civilian prosecutors over the voice recording in which Herons are mentioned,” he said.

Abidin Kutluca, the father of Vedat Kutluca, a private who died in the same raid, says they were simply devastated when they heard the voice recording, calling it treason and betrayal.

Kutluca said the General Staff, which has taken no legal action against the officers featured in the voice recording, with the exception of a stalled probe during which the officers were actually promoted to a higher rank, has a responsibility to him and his family. “I had doubts about the attack when I was burying my son. Wanting to shoot down Herons bought with Turkey’s money is the biggest betrayal of this country. If the military prosecutor’s office has not gotten any results so far, it won’t get any ever. It will pay for this in the hereafter.”

The family of ranger Pvt. Hakan Yutkun, killed along with five other Turkish soldiers on July 20, 2010, in an attack on an outpost in the Hantepe region of Hakkari’s Çukurca district, says it demands a satisfactory explanation from the General Staff with regard to accusations of neglect, security flaws and even treason. Gülfiye Yutkun, the late private’s mother, says her pain is still too fresh. “I sent my baby, and he came back in a coffin. Why did they take my baby to that hilltop and just leave him there. We are listening to the news; they say there were security breaches. They say the electricity was out, that the cameras didn’t work. We do not know how our son died. No one is giving us clear answers.”

Gökhan Sevim, the soldier’s cousin, said: “My aunt and uncle have been wondering if their son died in vain, but officials are not making any statements. We are very uneasy about this country’s youth. If I weren’t in school, I would be doing my military service now. I have no problem with becoming a martyr, but for whom and for what? Are we going to die according to some plan that someone hatched at his desk, or to defend our country? Everyone my age is asking this question.”

Cüneyt Toraman, a lawyer, says military prosecutors do not have jurisdiction over the investigation into the Heron scandal.

“This is a case of organized crime, which is why the authority to probe lies with civilian prosecutors. Civilian prosecutors cannot hand over their authority to military prosecutors, for that is a violation of the law.” He also urged the relevant high criminal court’s prosecutor to launch a probe into the Herons as soon as possible.

Identity of Heron officer revealed

Radikal daily’s Ankara representative Murat Yetkin in his column yesterday, basing this information on an unnamed intelligence source, claimed that MİT had intercepted the phone conversation based on a court order. Yetkin emphasized that for a court order, the identity of at least one of the speakers has to be known to the court. The same source also dismissed the military’s claim that the call was made from a payphone, saying it was impossible to -- both legally and technically -- wiretap a payphone.