Osman Yıldırım, one of the main suspects in the 2006 Council of State shooting, which left a senior judge dead, has stated that the attack was perpetrated with the purpose of dragging the country into chaos. Yıldırım was testifying to the İstanbul 13th High Criminal Court in the 121st hearing of the first of two ongoing trials into Ergenekon. The Council of State shooting case was merged with the Ergenekon trial earlier this year. Yıldırım and other suspects in the Council of State shooting are also accused of throwing hand grenades at the Cumhuriyet headquarters a few days before the Council of State attack. The daily was attacked three times in 2006, on May 5, 10 and 11. The attacks were followed by the Council of State shooting on May 17.

    At yesterday's trial, Yıldırım commented on his defense testimony given to an Ankara court before his case was merged with Ergenekon. The prosecutors read the testimony out loud. He confirmed everything he'd said earlier; noting that the only untruth in his earlier testimony was his denial of involvement in the Cumhuriyet attack. Yıldırım said both the Cumhuriyet hand grenade attack and the Council of State attack were carried out on Gen. Veli Küçük's orders. He said Capt. Muzaffer Tekin, also a defendant in the Ergenekon trial, had given him the hand grenades used in the Cumhuriyet attack. He said Alparslan Arslan, the Council of State hit man, took his orders from Küçük.

He reaffirmed: “Those who used Arslan were Küçük and Tekin. Their superiors were Şener Eruygur, Hurşit Tolon and Fikri Karadağ,” naming three of the highest ranking retired army members in the trial. In response to the judge’s question of how he could possibly know of these links, he said, “Is it so strange for me to know who the man who visited me so regularly is being used by?”

He claimed that before the Cumhuriyet attack, he, Tekin, Oktay Yıldırım, Karadağ, Orhan Kadı, a man whom he identified as “Hüseyin Görüm’s nephew,” Arslan and some others whom he did not know met in a house in İstanbul’s Ataşehir district, where he was given the hand grenades. In response to a query on who had taken him to the Ataşehir house, he said, “It was someone that I didn’t know. I could recognize him if I was shown his picture.”

He said he called Semih Tufan Gülaltay, a mafia boss who is also a defendant in the Ergenekon case, after the attack. He said Arslan was with Gülaltay when he called. He asked in the courtroom: “Alparslan Arslan, Muzaffer Tekin, Şener Eruygur, Hurşit Tolon, Zekeriya Öztürk and Fikri Karadağ. Haven’t these people been to see Semih Tufan Gülaltay? They should confess.” He also stated that after every attack, he drove Arslan to Küçük’s office in İstanbul’s Beşiktaş district.

He also told the court that Workers’ Party (İP) leader Doğu Perinçek, also jailed as an Ergenekon suspect, offered him help on the condition that he withdraw his testimony. He said he told Perinçek that he was made to look implicated in an assassination he had nothing to do with. At this point, one of the defendants, Erhan Timuroğlu, asked for permission to speak and told the court that Yıldırım had asked him to relay the message to some of the suspects that he would be withdrawing his testimony in return for $2 million. He also said he and Osman Yıldırım were in Sultançiftliği for a “shooting job” on the date when Yıldırım claimed the Ataşehir meeting between him and the retired generals occurred.

Yıldırım denied Timuroğlu’s statements, accusing him of lying and using force to make people submit to his wishes.

Retired Gen. Küçük’s daughter Zeynep Küçük, a lawyer, also spoke at yesterday’s hearing, saying Yıldırım was making false and accusatory statements based on no solid evidence.

Who is Osman Yıldırım?

Yıldırım has stood out since the May 17, 2006, Council of State shooting as a defendant with controversial court testimonies. He was named a suspect when investigators established that he drove to Ankara together with Arslan before the attack and had a number of phone conversations with him on the day of the attack. In his petition to the Ankara court originally hearing the case, he confessed for the first time the link between the Ergenekon terrorist organization and the Council of State attack. Denying Arslan’s testimony that he was “the sole mastermind of the attack,” Yıldırım has claimed that the order for the attack was given on April 27, 2006, by retired Gen. Küçük and that the hand grenades for the Cumhuriyet attacks were supplied by ret. Capt. Tekin, another defendant in the Ergenekon trial. Prosecutors had located the Glock handgun used in the Council of State attack, which they established to have been supplied by Police Department Special Operations Unit former Deputy Chief İbrahim Şahin based on his testimony.

Yıldırım said in a letter, “I have effectively collapsed the Ergenekon terrorist organization of which I am a member by illuminating the Council of State assassination.” His testimony also helped investigators find a hand grenade and two long-range rifles at a house in İstanbul’s Bağcılar district. He was sentenced to life in the Council of State trial, which was later merged with the Ergenekon case.