Prosecutors from two provinces have taken action to investigate possible links between the suspicious deaths of several military commanders, suspecting that there might be an organized structure behind the incidents.
The Specially Authorized Malatya Prosecutor's Office, which is conducting an investigation into the death of Col. Kazım Çillioğlu -- officially closed as a suicide but later reopened after new evidence came to light indicated that Çillioğlu could have been murdered -- recently requested the case files on Gen. Bahtiyar Aydın and Col. Rıdvan Özden from the Diyarbakır Prosecutor's Office. The three deaths came one after another between 1991 and 1995. Investigators will now focus on possible connections between the deaths, and sources close to the prosecutors involved indicate that there is also evidence suggesting the murders are connected.
Sources also say the prosecutors involved will convene a meeting soon to coordinate their efforts and evaluate the evidence more comprehensively.
The murder investigations in question could be reopened by civilian prosecutors thanks to a constitutional change adopted in a referendum in 2010, allowing civilian prosecutors to conduct probes into areas of military jurisdiction. A number of military officers were killed or died in suspicious circumstances in the early '90s, including Gendarmerie General Commander Gen. Eşref Bitlis, Diyarbakır Gendarmerie Regional Commander Gen. Aydın, Adana Gendarmerie Regional Commander Gen. Temel Cingöz, Gendarmerie Mardin Regiment Commander Col. Özden, Col. Çillioğlu and retired Gen. Hulusi Sayın.
Col. Özden was declared dead at the end of a clash with Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists, but autopsy reports contradicted the account of the witnesses and the initial report filed by the military on his death. Furthermore, there are a number of dubious aspects in all of the other deaths.
It is known that former President Turgut Özal, whose death is also currently the subject of an investigation, was working together with State Minister Adnan Kahveci, who died in a suspicious car accident in 1993, and Gendarmerie Gen. Bitlis, who also died in the same year, on a new plan to solve Turkey's Kurdish question. There are rumors that Gen. Bitlis had in fact prepared a report on the dealings of the gendarmerie in the predominantly Kurdish Southeast. Bitlis is believed to have been involved in the founding of JİTEM -- an illegal and clandestine intelligence unit set up by the gendarmerie in the '90s to fight terrorism, which was escalating at the time. The '90s saw tens of thousands of disappearances and unsolved killings of Kurds in the region, which are believed to be the work of JİTEM.
The new investigations might bring clues that can lead the prosecutors to JİTEM, or any other organization behind the killings. Some of the people who worked for JİTEM are already on trial as suspects in the Ergenekon case, in which they are accused of membership in a group that attempted to overthrow the government.
All of the officers killed in the '90s were known for their more democratic approach to the Kurdish question, their belief that separatist violence could not be stopped by force alone and that agricultural, economic and social measures were necessary.