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A confidential operation was conducted against the Ergenekon organization, which has been monitored for 2.5 months. Thirty-three people were taken into custody in an operation which hit 43 different locations. Those arrested for founding a terrorist organization include the Kuvayı Milliye Association chairman, Fikri Karadağ, and retired general Veli Küçük.
Charges brought against the deep-state linked Ergenekon organization by a Turkish court have shown that the gang was after a military takeover in Turkey while records of phone conversations of its members in the hands of German police show that they were also involved in the drug trade.
The Ergenekon organization -- 14 of whose members were arrested Saturday in one of the biggest operations ever against deep-state-linked groups in Turkey -- was working to create a chaotic atmosphere so that its counterparts in the military could overthrow the government, charges brought against the group by a law court in İstanbul has confirmed. All in all, 28 members of Ergenekon are currently under arrest. They were also involved in the drug trade, documents from the German police confirmed. Germany's Niedersachsen State's anti-drug department, Landeskrimi-nalamtes (LKA), which tapped the phones of some of the Ergenekon members as part of a narcotics investigation, proved that Ergenekon members were indeed in the drug business as well.
The court accuses the members of the Ergenekon gang, a xenophobic and ultranationalist organization suspected of a number of political murders including that of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, of committing bombings and attacks in the past two years, of inciting people to revolt, establishing a terrorist organization, of leading that terrorist organization and of membership in the terrorist organization.
Some of the gang members against whom charges have been brought are Veli Küçük, a retired general who is also the alleged founder of a clandestine and unofficial intelligence unit in the gendarmerie, the existence of which is denied by officials; controversial ultranationalist lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz, who filed countless suits against Turkish writers and intellectuals who were at odds with Turkey’s official policies; Fikret Karadağ, a retired army colonel; and Sevgi Erenerol, the press spokesperson for a group called the Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate.
Documents seized during the investigation into the gang, whose members include former military officers, some of them high-ranking, revealed that they were planning to create complete chaos in the country to prepare fertile ground for a military coup d’état in 2009.
An inspection of Küçük’s personal organizer showed that Ergenekon had planned six steps to stage an eventual coup. Leaders of the Ergenekon gang had jointly decided to “OK” Dink’s murder in January of last year, the murders of three Christians in Malatya last April, an attack on the Council of State that left a senior judge dead and bombings at the secularist daily Cumhuriyet, claimed some Turkish newspapers on Monday.
Daily Sabah also alleged that the murder of academic Necip Hablemitoğlu was ordered by the German secret service. Hablemtioğlu’s research suggested that individuals opposing gold prospecting disguised their acts as environmentalism but were really serving the interests of powerful gold exporters in Europe. Several newspapers wrote that the group had links to German intelligence.
The gang’s plans to create chaos and confusion included giving rise to armed conflict between Kurdish and Turkish citizens.
Newspapers wrote on Monday that the first stage of the group’s plan was to establish civil society organizations such as the Association for the Union of Patriotic Forces (VKGB), the National Forces Association and the Bureau of the Protection of Rights, all ultranationalist organizations. The second stage was to find support in the military among younger officers and higher-ranking soldiers unhappy about the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). The third stage involved a strange company known as the Special Bureau, an intelligence agency for the group set up by a former intelligence officer. The Special Bureau would protect the group’s plans from falling into the hands of the Nationalist Intelligence Organization (MİT) or a shady intelligence unit in the gendarmerie whose existence is officially denied. The fourth stage included adding into this scene bogus terrorist organizations that would foment conflict between the country’s Kurdish and Turkish populations. The unemployed, nationalist and uneducated Turkish youth, most of whom spend their time in the ultranationalist Idealist Clubs, would be used in various acts. The sixth stage includes recent political murders the group has been suspected of, including Dink’s, the killing of an Italian priest in 2006 and an armed raid on the Council of State -- as well as plans that have not yet been realized, including the assassination of Turkey’s Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk.
Ergenekon involvement in drug trafficking
Meanwhile, the deep-state-linked Ergenekon organization has been actively involved in drug trafficking to finance its activities, documents from the German police confirmed.
Germany’s Niedersachsen State’s anti-drug department, the LKA, which tapped the phones of some of the Ergenekon members as part of a narcotics investigation, proved that Ergenekon members were indeed in the drug business as well. The records of a Nov. 20, 2003 phone conversation between retired Capt. Muzaffer Tekin, arrested in June of last year as the owner of the munitions depot found in anİstanbul shantytown that started the Ergenekon operation, and Yılmaz Tavukçuoğlu, an alleged drug trafficker, shows that Ergenekon used drug money to fund its activities. The two men in these conversations talk about the sale of a plot of land in Ümraniye. According to the LKA’s Willi Neumann, the co-owners of the land were Tekin and Ertuğrul Yılmaz, the former owner of Doğuş Factoring, who was murdered in eastern Germany two years ago. Neumann’s report asserts that this piece of land might have been used to launder money from drug trading with Tavukçuoğlu. According to a book by Doğan Karlıbel titled “Turkey Operations of German Secret Services,” the piece of land was sold for $2.5 million. The money was shared between Tekin, Tavukçuoğlu and Ayhan Parlak, who was arrested in the 2006 attack against the Council of State, the same book claims.
Latest in the investigation
Meanwhile, the public prosecutor in the case objected to the release of nine individuals taken into custody earlier on in the Ergenekon investigation but later freed by the court. Late in the evening on Monday, the prosecution appealed the release of lawyer Fuat Turgut, who is currently the legal counsel of a suspect in the Dink murder, daily Akşam columnist Güler Kömürcü, Asım Demir, Raif Görüm, Emir Caner Yiğit, Tanju Okan, Yaşar Aslanköylü, Anatoli Medjan and Atilla Aksu. Representatives of Kerinçsiz also appealed his arrest. The İstanbul 13th Higher Criminal Court will review the appeals from both sides.
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