Ergenekon general probed over Hizbullah, PKK weapons

The general is currently one of the prime suspects in the case against Ergenekon, a clandestine criminal organization accused of plotting to topple the government. A large number of weapons seized at Hizbullah and PKK shelters in various southeastern provinces in 2000 and 2001 turned out to be registered in the gendarmerie inventory. Ersöz was serving as the gendarmerie commander in Şırnak at the time.

The probe against the retired general was launched after a letter by a prisoner at Erciş Prison reached a civilian prosecutor, who is conducting a probe into Ergenekon. The letter claimed that the weapons seized at the shelters were used by an illegal and secret organization inside the gendarmerie known as JİTEM. The prosecutor, Zekeriya Öz, forwarded the letter to the Diyarbakır Public Prosecutor’s Office, which decided to investigate the claims.

According to the claims, 13 Hizbullah terrorists were captured in a police raid at an address in the İdil district of Şırnak in January, 2001. Police also seized 20 Kalashnikov rifles, five light anti-tank weapons (LAWs), three rocket launchers and one A-3 rifle. A technical analysis on the weapons showed that they were registered in the Şırnak Provincial Gendarmerie Command inventory.

A letter from the command to a State Security Court (DGM) in Diyarbakır stressed that the weapons belong to the military and requested that they be returned to the command.

Police seized around 100 long-barrel rifles and thousands of rifles during a raid against Hizbullah in Şırnak’s Cizre district on Nov. 15, 2000. A report by the State Security Directorate’s criminal laboratory revealed that the weapons were used in a number of bloody attacks on civilians by PKK terrorists. Among those attacks were an armed attack in the village of Bozburun in Şırnak’s İdil district in 1996, shots fired on a vehicle in the village of Yazman in İdil in 1992, an armed attack in the village of Yüksekköy in İdil in 1992, the bombing of a vehicle in the village of Oyalı in İdil in 1992, the bombing of a house in the neighborhood of Atakent in İdil in 1996 and an armed attack in the village of Kurtuluş in İdil in 1997. Several individuals were killed in these attacks.