INTERNATIONAL

Alleged Masterminds of Slayings in Turkey Implicated

University researcher admits Turkish security forces monitor missionaries.

By Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, Testimony taken by Malatya prosecutors last week corroborates a letter e-mailed to Turkish Protestant church leaders a year ago naming alleged perpetrators behind the savage murder of three Christians in April 2007.

University researcher Ruhi Abat confirmed to prosecutors that he was in direct contact with three military officers named in the informant’s June 2007 e-mail and that gendarme officials were tracking Christian missionary activities in Malatya.

Abat’s admission “increased the question marks,” Milliyet newspaper reported yesterday, as to who instigated last year’s brutal assault in the Malatya office of Zirve Publishing that left behind two widows, five young children and a fiancée.

Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske were tied up, beaten, tortured with knives and left with their throats slashed by five young men on April 18, 2007.

Last week Abat confirmed to prosecutors that since 2003 he had cooperated with Malatya’s security police and gendarme headquarters in monitoring the activities of Christian missionaries in the province.

“Abat’s statement raised questions about what kind of investigations the security and gendarme were carrying on regarding missionary activities, which are not a crime,” the Milliyet article observed.

Abat reportedly named Cmdr. Mehmet Ulger, Maj. Haydar Yesil and Mehmet Colak as the gendarme officials he contacted, sometimes in person and sometimes by telephone.

The same names appeared in the year-old letter from Ali Aslan, who also identified several other figures in politics and the judiciary he claimed were involved in the plot.

“I supported their investigations several times,” Abat said in his statement quoted in Milliyet and Taraf yesterday. “They had asked me about evangelism, Baptists, Methodists, baptism, councils and various other particulars, and I gave them answers.”

But Abat flatly denied allegations in Aslan’s letter accusing him of conspiring to plan the deadly attack with the other alleged perpetrators.

“It was noted that this close watch on missionary activities was being handled by the top-ranking commander in the province,” Taraf newspaper noted yesterday.

“These revelations clearly show that all the security forces in Turkey, the gendarme and the police, have been intensively watching the activities of the Protestants, and that they see them as some kind of criminals,” head plaintiff lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz told Compass today.

Such surveillance raises troubling questions, Cengiz said.

“If they are watching such a tiny group so carefully, it is almost impossible that they would not also be aware of these clandestine ultranationalist groups wanting to attack them,” Cengiz said. He added, “It is very disturbing to learn that the top general himself [Ulger] has been dealing directly with this. It indicates how seriously they take Christians as a threat.”

Identified previously by the last names of Polat and Balat, Abat is a researcher in the Basic Islam Sciences division of the Religious Faculty of Malatya’s Inonu University. He is also a provincial council member of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in Malatya.

In his initial police statement last year, Abat had denied any close relations with the alleged ringleader of the killers, Emre Gunaydin. But his mobile phone records revealed 18 calls with Gunaydin in the five weeks before the murders.

 

Deliberate Misinformation

Abat’s formal testimony to the Malatya prosecutor echoes credible statements obtained by Compass over the past two years from Turkish citizens who had been exposed to deliberate misinformation against Christian activities while doing their obligatory military service.

One individual said he and his platoon based in eastern Turkey were shown a video against terrorism about 15 days before they were released from active duty. Included in the video was secret footage of church family camps sponsored during the summers by Protestant Christians in the region.

Turkish government officials have repeatedly linked Christians with terrorism as recently as the day after the Malatya murders, when Niyazi Guney, director general of laws in the Ministry of Justice, was quoted in Milliyet  newspaper as saying, “Missionaries are more dangerous than terror organizations.”

Another Turkish soldier who was assigned to work in a controversial branch of the gendarme’s secret intelligence directorate in an eastern province told Compass he saw detailed lists of information and surveillance reports about both Turkish citizens and expatriates believed to be involved in Christian missionary work.

Now finished with his military service, the source said the branch of military intelligence with which he worked was investigating the activities of the Protestant churches in Diyarbakir and Iskenderun “and almost all the churches all over Turkey.”

In a statement released to the Turkish press a week after the Malatya murders, Diyarbakir Protestant pastor Ahmet Guvener had declared, “Unfortunately, even the organs of the state which we always respect have made us a target.”

Guvenar added, “Even the General Staff Command Headquarters…has put out a CD about missionaries which is unfounded. It includes video taken in 2002 at Elazig’s Hader Lake and in 2003 at Mersin’s Kizkale, where we had our [church] family camps.”

In his April 24, 2007 statement, Guvener said the video referred to 19- and 20-year-olds at the camps as soldiers doing a lofty duty. “They were presenting us to the public as elements threatening the country and traitors to the nation,” he said.

 

Multiple Informant Letters

Still another “informant” letter hit today’s headlines, reportedly mailed to Malatya Deputy Gov. Erdinc Filiz on April 14 and forwarded to the prosecutor’s office.

Claiming that Abat and the same three gendarme officials were involved in “illegal work,” the anonymous informant was quoted in Taraf  newspaper as stating that “all of their activities were conducted in very strict secrecy.”

“It is necessary to take seriously these letters from several informants who know the incident,” plaintiff lawyer Ali Koc told Taraf  today. “They are feeling upset and have made efforts to expose the incident.”

He added, “It is not possible for someone who does not know the incident to give these kinds of details.”

At least four letters from informants have been sent to Turkish authorities over the year, claiming to have detailed, personal knowledge about the Malatya killings. Two were sent from prison cells by ultranationalists who said they had been involved previously with Gunaydin or the Ulku Ocaklari youth organization, known for its unofficial MHP links.

“For sure the truth can come out through interrogation,” Koc continued, noting that so far no military officials have been questioned. “In fact, the prosecution is trying to limit many events to prevent exposing the incident clearly. But according to international legal criteria, every kind of information should be subjected to questioning, starting with the soldiers whose names are in the letter.”

The latest revelations in the high-profile Malatya murder trial surfaced just before the seventh court hearing set to open on Monday (June 9). The five suspects have all blamed each other for the murders, claiming they did not personally kill anyone.

For the first time, the defendants will appear together in court to face cross-examination over their widely conflicting testimonies. The Malatya prosecutors have asked the court for three consecutive life sentences in prison for all five men.

 

Provided by Compass Direct News