TURKEY: Murder & more – 2nd July 2024

Merhaba from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Turkey Update from the 2nd of July twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Turkey.

On Monday the 1st of July, the trial for the assassination of Sinan Ateş began at the Sincan Prison in Ankara. Ateş was the former president of the Grey Wolves Organization, an ultra-nationalist group tied to the Nationalist People’s Party or MHP.

Back in December twenty twenty-two, Eray Özyağcı, a hitman, shot and killed Ateş in Ankara. The police later arrested him. Olcay Kılavuz, an MP from the MHP, was with the perpetrator at the time of the arrest. He was hanging out with the gunman. He didn’t go to the site with the police, which raised questions about the murder being politically motivated. Ateş's widow also suggested political involvement in the murder. There's speculation that Sinan Ateş drifted from the party and Devlet Bahçeli, the head of MHP, instructed him to resign from his post as Gray Wolves leader, leading to tension between the two. The MHP did not offer condolences to the family or attend the funeral, which added to the speculations.

Initially, Özyağcı stated that he acted alone and he planned the murder himself. However, during the trial, he said he collaborated with Doğukan Çep, a criminal with no political or business affiliations, in plotting the attack. He revealed that Çep told him to shoot Ateş in the legs, citing personal conflicts. Çep also admitted to the collaboration, backing up Özyağcı’s statement. Even though their statements steered the conversation away from alleged political motives, the court still considers it a possibility.

Next up we have another high-profile trial… On Monday the 1st of July, an Ankara court gave the final verdict for the twenty fifteen Ankara Train Station Massacre, nine years after the incident. The attack occurred during a Labour, Peace, and Democracy rally and killed over a hundred people, injuring over five hundred. It became the deadliest terror attack in the country’s history. The court sentenced ten defendants to aggravated life imprisonment. They also received eighteen years in prison for over three hundred counts of attempted murder. The prosecutor had also charged the defendants with crimes against humanity, as the authorities held ISIS responsible for the attack. However, the court acquitted all defendants of crimes against humanity. This was called into question, with criticism over the verdict for not addressing crimes against humanity, and the acquittal of ISIS.

In some political news… On Tuesday the 2nd, President Erdoğan replaced Fahrettin Koca, the Health Minister, and Mehmet Özhaseki, the Urbanization Minister. He replaced Koca with Kemal Memişoğlu, the Istanbul Provincial Health Director, and reappointed Murat Kurum as the urbanization minister after Özhaseki resigned due to health issues. Kurum had previously resigned from this post to run for Istanbul mayor and lost to opposition candidate İmamoğlu. He was in office when the earthquakes of the 6th of February of twenty twenty-three happened. The public held him responsible for the great devastation in the earthquake zone, citing a lack of regulations against unsafe buildings.

In other news… During a parliamentary session on Wednesday the 26th, an MP from the main opposition, the Republican People’s Party, unveiled a sixty-five-foot-long list of international crime organization leaders wanted with red notices who had been captured in Turkey. He emphasized rising organized crime in the country and questioned whether the Financial Crimes Investigation Board was investigating the connections of these organizations within Turkey and monitoring their bank activities. He pointed out that the lack of measures against these organizations caused the Financial Action Task Force, or FATF, the leading organization to tackle money laundering, terrorist and proliferation financing internationally, to gray-list Turkey back in twenty twenty-one, which affected its credit score negatively.

He thanked the Interior Ministry and the law enforcement for taking great measures against these organizations in the first half of twenty twenty-four. However, he pointed out that Turkey had to introduce new regulations to monitor cryptocurrency trade to improve the country’s gray list status before the Force’s meeting on Friday the 28th of June.

Fortunately, on Wednesday the 26th, the parliament passed the new regulation, and the FATF found Turkey’s efforts adequate and removed the country from its gray list, marking a positive step for Turkey's economic turnaround plan. Turkish officials stated that this development has the potential to boost investor confidence and attract fresh investment to the country.

Moving on… An employee at Istanbul's Çam and Sakura City Hospital has filed a petition with the Parliament demanding the government investigate an alleged significant nuclear leak at the hospital. The petition says that the hospital concealed the leak, with an official from the Provincial Health Directorate instructing the cover-up. The hospital's chief physician was also reportedly aware of the leak. The hospital relocated the employee as a punishment for reporting the incident. The employee reportedly learned about the leak during a meeting with hospital administrators. Meanwhile, the Istanbul Provincial Health Director told the Sözcü newspaper that the Atomic Energy Authority is monitoring the incident and that it hasn’t detected a leak so far.

In some unfortunate news… On Sunday the 30th of June, an industrial cylinder exploded in a restaurant in İzmir's Torbalı district, killing five people. The Mayor of İzmir reported that there are over sixty injured individuals currently receiving treatment. The city governor mentioned that the explosion caused significant damage to the street and affected at least ten nearby buildings. Unfortunately, the blast occurred in the middle of the day on one of the busiest streets, when pedestrian traffic was high.

Also on Sunday the 30th, authorities arrested a Syrian national accused of molesting a young Syrian child in the city of Kayseri in Central Turkey. Witnesses reported that they caught the suspect red-handed with a five-year-old child. Local residents gathered and caused a disturbance while trying to apprehend the perpetrator. Numerous police, medical, and fire brigade teams arrived at the scene. Special operations police captured the suspect and removed him from the area. However, it didn’t calm down the angry crowd. They overturned vehicles and set fire to some foreign businesses’ buildings, chanting “Erdoğan resign.” They protested against the high number of Syrian refugees in the country. Police intervened to disperse the crowd.

There were similar disturbances against Syrians and their businesses overnight across many cities with a high Syrian population. In response, there were uprisings against Turks in Turkish-controlled regions of Northern Syria. Syrians in Syria attacked Turkish cars and Turkish businesses. Some also attacked a truck carrying fruits and vegetables to Syria from Turkey.

Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, the Interior Ministry, and law enforcement agencies coordinated efforts to monitor and address these incidents. Authorities called these disturbances provocations aiming to harm the Turkish state and its foreign policy. They apprehended many of the people who participated in the disturbances, and are in the process of identifying the rest of the individuals that were present. This was put into question, as it might have been a tactic to scare off any future protestors.

On Friday the 28th of June, Pope Francis said he wanted to visit Turkey next year to commemorate the anniversary of the First Council of the Christian Church. According to a Vatican statement, he said this during a meeting with a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in Istanbul. The First Council of Nicaea, held in the year 325 in what is now the district of İznik in Bursa, addressed key theological debates about Jesus's divine and human nature. The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew also mentioned that Pope Francis plans to visit Istanbul before heading to İznik.

And to close this edition, some updates from İstanbul… Starting from the 3rd of July, teams of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality will begin renovating the asphalt on the Metrobus lane of the Golden Horn Bridge. The construction will last untill the 8th of July. Authorities will redirect the traffic through alternative routes. During this time, the D-100 highway towards Kadıköy on the Golden Horn middle bridge will be closed.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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