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Ergenekon and the Malatya massacre
by Orhan Kemal Cengiz
On Thursday, in connection with the Malatya massacre, quite an interesting and promising operation started across the country; 20 people were taken into custody, including the former gendarmerie commander of Malatya and other gendarmerie officials. This is the most important and significant move in merging the Malatya massacre case with the Ergenekon probe, where it belongs.
Last year, as lawyers for the victims in this massacre, we met with Ergenekon prosecutor Zekeriya Öz and demanded the merging of these two cases and we submitted a detailed petition to him showing the connections between these two cases.
This operation on Thursday indicates that the signs and directions that were shown in a letter from an informer which was submitted to a Malatya court in 2008 are finally being taken seriously. This informant’s letter, signed with a false name, “Ali Aslan,” indicated that the gendarmerie commander of Malatya and some other gendarmerie officers together with a lecturer from the faculty of theology at İnönü University were the real masterminds behind these murders. The letter gave specific names and urged us to look into the connections between these people.
We wanted the Malatya court to initiate an investigation into these allegations; however, they thought it was up to the prosecutors to decide what to do with this letter. Later on we submitted a formal request to the Malatya prosecutors to investigate these allegations. The Malatya prosecutors then declared such an investigation was not within the scope of their duty as the crimes were allegedly committed by military personal.
They forwarded this informant’s letter to the Malatya Military Court, which decided not to pursue the matter as this letter did not have the necessary requirements to be deemed an official complaint. This was, of course, an “interesting” comment. What they were saying basically is that if someone brings accusations against the gendarmerie commander, this person has to disclose his identity.
The allegations were serious but we could not find any official willing to investigate them. There was nothing surprising in these developments. For civil prosecutors there was the terrible example of a Şemdinli prosecutor, who dared to investigate allegations against high-ranking military personnel, which cost him everything, including his job. For military prosecutors it meant they would have to investigate their commander and, of course, there was the implication that their commander may have been acting under orders by his superiors. They could not do that.
Before the Ergenekon investigation it was not possible to investigate crimes allegedly committed by military personal. As happened in our situation, all files would be referred to military courts and then, of course, in most cases nothing would eventuate. In 2011 Turkey’s military personnel cannot enjoy such impunity and we are, therefore, in a position to shed light on crimes that we could not imagine investigating in the past.
I really hope that this last operation relating to Ergenekon-Malatya will bring us closer to uncovering the real network behind the Malatya massacre, which I believe was part of a greater plan to create chaos and bring Turkey to the verge of another military coup.
If the Malatya massacre can be entirely solved, I believe we can also solve the Hrant Dink murder. And if we can solve the Dink murder, then we can reach the brains behind the deep state in Turkey. We are still far from this point, but this recent development is a glimmer of hope.
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