OYAK workers, Ergenekon suspects called from same number

The İstanbul 10th High Criminal Court has shared folders including evidence files relating to the Council of State shooting with suspects' lawyers. The case against the shooting was merged with the case against Ergenekon, a clandestine criminal organization accused of working to overthrow the government, in 2009. One senior judge was killed in an attack inside the Council of State building in 2006.

The hit man said he attacked the court to protest a ruling it had made against the headscarf. He portrayed himself as a religious zealot in his statements in the initial court proceedings, but it was later revealed that he was connected to Ergenekon.

The additional folders of evidence show that four suspects in the Ergenekon case as well as two OYAK technicians were called from the same mobile phone number one day before the attack, strengthening suspicions that Ergenekon and OYAK cooperated to destroy evidence related to the shooting.

It remains a mystery who called the suspects and technicians from that number and what they talked about during the conversations. Police are currently investigating this. Police asked OYAK technician Metin Almalı about the phone number and its user, but the technician said he does not know who the number belongs to.

At the time of the shooting, the Council of State building was being guarded by the OYAK Security Company, which largely employed retired military officers who had served in the Special Forces Command.

A report drafted in 2010 by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) suggested that security camera records from the Council of State building had been deliberately destroyed after the 2006 assault. The report also said the council had been able to retrieve some of the footage from the cameras. The non-retrievable parts pertained to the day of and the day before the attack.

The TÜBİTAK examination showed the devices were not out of order at the time of the attack, as had been previously claimed. The report also said some of the footage from the cameras was renamed and later deleted by unidentified individuals. The report strengthened suspicions that security camera footage from the building may have been destroyed by the company's staff.

The additional folders of evidence also suggest that OYAK placed “bugs” in several state offices and private companies in order to wiretap conversations there. In a phone conversation between two OYAK technicians in 2010, wiretapped legally by the police, one technician is heard saying that the “device works very well this time.” In response, the other technician is heard asking if “voices are recorded clearly,” and adding, “We need to hear if a fly is in there.”