Tuesday, February 07, 2006

-----------------------

The National Lampoon: Mehmet Ali Agca and the Nevsehir 5

"Those who want to continue their lives in this regime, must unite in defending it against terrorism. Those parties against terrorism, the ones that must be against terrorism, must support each other, must formulate their conditions without delay. To lean towards the use of questionable methods, will be to fall into the terrorists' trap. The masses and responsible institutions, without allowing this to happen, without breaking from democracy, must overcome this--must be able to overcome this. This madness must be stopped."
--Abdi Ipekci, July 13 1978, quoted by Can Dundar


As Can Dundar notes in his recap of the Mehmet Ali Agca case, Abdi Ipekci, then editor of Milliyet, was murdered by Agca six months after he wrote those words. Although there are many gaping holes in the story of Agca up to the shooting of the Pope, one doesn't need to elaborately apply conspiracy theories to explain his early, if short-lived, release after he had shot the Pope. He was sentenced to 36 years for the murder of Ipekci, and the time he served for shooting the Pope in Rome was counted towards the murder sentence. As I understand it, that supposedly left 16 years he had to complete from 2000 on. But the 10 year Amnesty given to all criminals during Ozal's time (which no one argued against because everyone and their grandmother had people in jail), had reduced that sentence to six. On top of all that, people had argued that Agca had neither served 20 years (a little over 19) in Rome or completed the hacked sentence of 6 years (five-someting) in Turkey. Thus the minor correction, and the re-arrest of the Messiah (for the next four years, that is). When asked by the reporters if he was God during his arrest, Agca replied, "No I'm not God...I'm not God, I'm Jesus Christ....I'm just Jesus Christ."

Of course, what the outside press usually doesn't mention is that prior to the shooting of the Pope Agca was arrested for the murder of Ipekci and put into a military prison, somehow escaped wearing a military uniform a few months later, and ended up in Rome to shoot the Pope a year or so after that. In fact, after he escaped from prison a note was left at the Milliyet bureau in which the writer claimed to be Agca and stated that he was going to go shoot the Pope. Can Dundar explains in his piece that the four besides Agca that are associated with the murder of Ipekci are Catli (the one who sheltered Agca in Turkey), Celik (the person who is believed to have ordered to murder), Ozbey (the one Agca claimed to be the assassin), Sener (the one who got Agca involved) are all connected to Nevsehir (Cappadocia). Ugur Mumcu, who looked into the case, found out Agca got his passport to escape the country from the Nevsehir Security Bureau. Not only that but four of the five in the group have their passports stamped by the same bureau. In June 1980, Zeki Tekinel, a CHP government lawyer in Nevsehir was murdered by ultranationalists. The person sent to jail for the murder was Omer Ay, who also got his passport from the Nevsehir Security Bureau. Can Dundar writes, "Agca's passport # was: 136 635, Ay's passport # was: 136 636." Not the brightest of fellows it must be said. Before journalist Ugur Mumcu found out who had been their connection at the bureau, he was assasinated by a bomb attack in 1993. That connection at the bureau surfaced years later in the Susurluk scandal. Ibrahim Sahin, a person brought to trial for his part in the scandal, testified that he had worked at the Nevsehir Security Bureau up until 1982. There was also a photo found of him next to Abdullah Catli (the one who hid Agca) at a party....all this pointing to the notion that a network of people were able, in the least, to have mafia-fied parts of the state institutions.

|

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?