Alleged ‘Middleman’ Arrested in Malatya, Turkey Murders

Two key witnesses’ testimonies connect suspects to higher-level ‘masterminds.’

ISTANBUL, October 21 (CDN) — A court in southeast Turkey on Friday (Oct. 15) ordered the arrest of a suspected “middleman” linking the murder of three Christian men to alleged high-level masterminds.

The arrest order came after the testimonies of a former prison inmate and an incarcerated ex-gendarmerie intelligence worker at Friday’s hearing. Journalist Varol Bulent Aral – one of the suspected “middlemen” who allegedly incited five young men to stab to death Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske at the Zirve Publishing Co. in Malatya – was re-arrested at the hearing.  

The three Christians were bound and tortured before they were murdered on April 18, 2007, at the Christian publishing house, where they worked. Suspects Salih Guler, Cuma Ozdemir, Hamit Ceker, Abuzer Yildirim and alleged ring-leader Emre Gunaydin were caught trying to escape from the scene of the crime.

Attorneys said the last hearing of the Malatya murders was productive in tracing links between the five murderers and political masterminds whom prosecution lawyers claim are behind the slayings. A key witness, Orhan Kartal, was instrumental in proving that Aral was behind the murders, lawyers said.

“Not only this witness, but Emre also accused Aral before and then changed his statement,” said one of the prosecuting lawyers, Orhan Kemal Cengiz. “Before he retracted his statement, he gave details that couldn’t have been fabricated. So from the beginning we saw Aral was involved but couldn’t prove it.”

Kartal spent two months in prison with Aral in Adiyaman in 2008, where they were both held for crimes not related to the Zirve murders. Kartal said that while in prison together Aral detailed how he had planned the attack on the Zirve publishing house by psychologically preparing the five young murderers for the gruesome act. According to Kartal, Aral said he gave the young men the weapons they used to kill the three Christians.

In Kartal’s account, Aral also claimed that there was a higher figure behind him, retired Gen. Veli Kucuk. This year Aral completed his previous prison sentence. He is now again in prison as a key suspect in the Malatya murders.

In a previous statement, Aral had complained that retired Gen. Kucuk had threatened him about testifying. Gen. Kucuk has been arrested in connection with Ergenekon, a loose collection of ultra-nationalist generals, businessmen, mafia and journalists who planned to destabilize the government. Evidence in Malatya hearings over the past three years suggests that the murders were instigated by Ergenekon.

Aral has also been implicated in the Ergenekon case, the hearings of which are underway.

Prosecutors believe the Malatya murders are directly linked with a military operation called the Cage Plan within the scope of Ergenekon activities. A document entitled “Cage Plan,” found on a retired general’s computer, described assassinations that targeted the country’s small Christian communities. The document referred to the Malatya murders as a “successful operation.”

A second witness, Erhan Ozen, also in prison for other offenses, worked for the clandestine Gendarmerie Intelligence Organization (JITEM). He said that as early as 2004, JITEM personnel were planning the Malatya murders and the assassination of Armenian editor Hrant Dink.

Ozen said that after a meeting, some co-workers talked about how they were organizing an operation against the three Christians in Malatya in an effort to portray the state as ineffectual. He also testified that the rector of the local university and JITEM were monitoring the activities of the three Christian men.

“He was convincing because he gave many details that were coherent and that confirm each other, so his testimony seems to me authentic,” attorney Cengiz said. “But of course, we will see.”

In April the Malatya court added the Cage Plan indictment to its case file.

Prosecuting lawyer Erdogan Dogan told Compass that this is clear evidence linking the Malatya murders to the Cage Plan. For almost a year, prosecution lawyers have tried to make the case that the two court cases should be merged.

“We had progress in the case,” Dogan said of the two testimonies on Friday. “They might decide to join the two cases in the next court hearing.”

Judges had found the phone numbers of ultranationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz and Sevgi Erenerol, spokesperson for the Turkish Orthodox Church – a Turkish nationalist denomination –in Aral’s personal phone book. Both figures are accused of playing leading roles in Ergenekon and spearheaded prosecution of Christians Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal for speaking to people about their faith.

This week various media released autopsy pictures and images of police videos showing the five suspects as they walk through the blood-stained Zirve office explaining how they committed the crime.

Lawyers said they did not know who leaked these to the press, but they didn’t think the images would affect the case.

“These will, however, show the country how the young men were incited and murdered the men, full of racism and hatred,” said Dogan. “This will be obvious and should be noted. The state needs to urgently address the fact that these youngsters, or anyone, can become so filled with racism and hatred.”

He said that acceptance and tolerance of other people’s thoughts and beliefs is fundamental, and that the state should teach these values to its people.  

The next hearing of the Malatya murders case is on Dec. 3.

Report from Compass Direct News

INDIA: CHRISTIAN FATHER OF TWO MURDERED IN ORISSA

Nephew, mother suspect Hindu hardliners shouting anti-Christian threats that morning.

NEW DELHI, February 25 (Compass Direct News) – Family members of a Christian found murdered last week in the Pandagadu area of Orissa state’s Kandhamal district said they believe the killers were Hindu nationalists such as those responsible for more than two months of violent anti-Christian rioting last year.

Hrudayananda Nayak, a 42-year-old father of two, was found dead on Thursday (Feb. 19) with several injuries to his head sustained as he took a shortcut through a forest to his home village of Rudangia, two kilometers from Pandagadu and five kilometers from G. Udayagiri.

His mother, Prasanna Kumari Nayak, has submitted a written complaint to police alleging the killers were associated with Hindu hardliners involved in last year’s rioting. His nephew Sujan Nayak, a lawyer and resident of Rudangia who saw the victim’s body, said that his uncle appeared to have undergone a fatal beating.

Sujan Nayak told Compass that on the day of Hrudayananda Nayak’s death, Feb. 18, his uncle told him before leaving home that he had received threats from three drunken men who were standing outside shouting threats at Christians in general that morning.

“He quoted them as saying, ‘We will not burn houses this time but will kill all Christians one by one,’” Sujan Nayak said.

Describing the injuries on his uncle’s body, Nayak told Compass there were wounds on his forehead, a severe wound on the left side of his head near the ear, as well as injuries to the back of his head and “marks around his neck.” He added that a blood-stained towel and flashlight battery were found near the body.

“From the battery and the injuries on his head it is evident that a huge torch was used for hitting him, and the mark on the neck shows that the towel was put around his neck to drag him,” he said.

There is reason to suspect the men who had threatened anti-Christian violence, he said.

“The three men threatening violence in the morning were seen on the same road passing through the forest where Hrudayananda was murdered at 11 at night on the date of the murder,” Nayak said, adding that the three suspects have absconded. “It is one week since the murder, and the suspects have not returned back home.”

He said that the victim’s mother also witnessed the threats that her son and others received the morning of the murder, “but due to fear of revenge from them she did not reveal this to the police.”

District Superintendent of Police S. Praveen Kumar reportedly said it is not clear that the murder was related to last year’s anti-Christian rioting.

“I am not sure if his death has anything to do with the communal violence,” he told media. “Our investigation is on. Somebody may have hit him on the head, causing his death.”

The killing is the third such murder since October 2008, when the more than two months of large-scale, anti-Christian violence that began in August officially came to an end.

 

Missing

Sujan Nayak said that his uncle left home in Rudangia for a market at G. Udayagiri on the afternoon of Feb. 18.

On his way back, Hrudayananda Nayak took a vehicle from G. Udayagiri as far as Gressgia village, from which he took a shorter route to Rudangia, crossing the forest by foot. It was around 7 in the evening. He had covered a distance of two kilometers and reached an isolated part of Pandagadu when he was attacked.

When he did not return home as expected that day, the following day villagers went searching for him in different directions. Around half a kilometer from the site of the murder is a school, and students there informed the search team of a blood-stained slipper lying near the school grounds.

The victim’s mother identified the slippers as belonging to her son, Hrudayananda Nayak. A rigorous search began around the area, and soon they noticed blood spots on a path leading up a hill. Reaching the top of the hill, between two huge rocks forming a cave shape they found Nayak’s body.

“His shirt and pants were taken off and kept aside, which means they had intentions of burning the body,” said Sujan Nayak. He explained that it is normal practice in the area to remove clothes on a body to be burned to reduce the time necessary for cremation.

Police were immediately informed, he said, adding, “Sniffer dogs were brought who led them to the lane of the house that belongs to one of the men who screamed threats the other morning, and then to a pond located in the same area used for bathing.”

Police suspect the killers had washed in the pond after committing the crime, Sujan Nayak said.

The house of the suspect to which the dogs led police is about 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the house of the victim.

According to Sujan Nayak, even after the dogs traced the lane where one suspect lives, police have been slow to proceed with the case.

Hrudayananda Nayak is survived by his 35-year-old wife, Reena Nayak, a 10-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son.

Report from Compass Direct News

BANGLADESH: BUDDHISTS DRIVE CHRISTIAN FROM HOME

In same district, Muslim land-grabbers murder defender of tribal villagers.

DHAKA, Bangladesh, December 26 (Compass Direct News) – Buddhist villagers in southeastern Bangladesh’s Rangamati district last week beat a young father and drove him from his house for converting to Christianity.

The Buddhists in Asambosti, in the Tabalchari area some 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast of Dhaka, warned Sujan Chakma, 27, not to return to his home after beating him on Dec. 18. Chakma, who converted to Christianity about four months ago, has come back to his home but some nights the likelihood of attacks forces him to remain outside.

He is often unable to provide for his 26-year-old wife, Shefali Chakma, and their 6-year-old son, as area residents opposed to his faith refuse to give him work as a day laborer. Chakma, his wife and son do not eat on days he does not work, he said.

“I am ostracized by my neighbors since I became Christian,” Chakma said. “They put pressure on me to give up my faith, saying otherwise I cannot live in this society. Nothing daunted me, I held firm to my faith in Jesus. On Dec. 18, four of my neighbors came to my home and beat me. They slapped and punched on me. Later they forced me to leave my house. They threatened me that if I come back to my home, I will be in great trouble.”

Neighbors have threatened to beat him again and to send him to jail, he said, and they have pressured him to divorce to his wife.

“At first she did not like my conversion, but she liked my change after accepting Jesus,” he said. “My wife told openly to those neighbors, ‘My husband is a Christian, so I will be a Christian along with my son.’”

A spokesman for Chakma’s church, Parbatta Adivasi Christian Church, said church leaders met with some of the new convert’s neighbors and urged them to accept him.

“We told them that our constitution supports that anyone can accept any religion,” the church spokesman said. “Hindering their practice is unlawful.”

Church leaders said they fear that taking the case to local officials and police would only further anger local Buddhists and harm evangelical activities.

“We do not want to enrage anyone over this incident,” said the spokesman. “But Chakma does not feel secure to stay here. He does not spend the night in his house for security reasons.”

 

Rights Advocate Murdered

Earlier this year in Rangamati district, Bengali Muslim settlers killed a tribal Christian for defending indigenous peoples from illegal land-grabs.

On Aug. 19 Ladu Moni Chakma, 55, was stabbed repeatedly and his throat was cut at Sajek in Baghaichuri sub-district in Rangamati district after he reported to the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission how a military commander helped settle Bengali Muslims on area lands.

A pastor of the Bangladesh Baptist Church in the district told Compass that Chakma was killed because he was a Christian who was an outspoken defender of minorities in the area.

“They do not want any Christian to live here,” the pastor said. “They hate Christians more than any other minority religions – it is one of the main reasons to evict and kill Ladu Moni. If people become Christian, many NGOs [Non-Governmental Organizations] will be set up here, and various local and international missionaries will look after them, so that Bengali settlers cannot grab lands illegally.”

Chakma often interceded with the Chittagong Hill Tract Commission on behalf of the indigenous people about their rights and the cruel manner in which Bengali settlers illegally took lands from indigenous people, the pastor added.

Chakma’s widow, Cikonpudi Chakma, also known as Minti Chakma, told reporters in Dhaka on Aug. 28 how the Bengali settlers attacked her family around 10:30 p.m. in Aug. 19.

“Some people were shouting, ‘Open the door! Open the door!’” she said. “Without realizing anything what was going on, three Bengali people broke in our shanty hut.”

She saw knives in their hand and recognized a local man named Mohammed Ali, who earlier in the year had helped settlers seize lands from villagers.

The attackers blindfolded her and dragged her husband out of their home into the rain. They also tried to take her 13-year old daughter, Minu, she said.

“I resisted them taking out my daughter, and I was injured during the tussle with them,” she said. “They hit my forehead with a knife.”

She and her children fled through a backdoor and escaped certain rape and death by jumping down a ravine and rolling to the bottom. Drenched, they took shelter at a nearby home.

“I could not contact my husband that night,” she said. “The next morning, we were returning [to] our home. On the way near Baghaihat, we saw a blood-stained, stock-still body. It was my husband. His body was mutilated and stabbed with sharp knife and machete.”

Police sub-inspector Azizur Rahman Aziz of Baghaichari police station told Compass that his department had arrested three persons in connection with the killing of Chakma.

“We are investigating the case, and after the national election [to be] held on Jan. 29, we will submit the charge sheet,” he said.

Chakma’s widow urged the army-backed interim caretaker government to withdraw settlers from Sajek in Baghaichari and punish the murderers of her husband.

 

House Burnings

In April, mainly Muslim Bengali settlers aided by the army and a local businessman burned 77 homes in four villages of the tribal people in Sajek, Cikonpudi Chakma told reporters in August.

“In that arson attack, all of our wealth and assets were destroyed,” she said. “Just a week after, we again built a new house. At that time, Mohammad Ali tried to stop us making a new house and demanded that our land was his. The problem started when the Baghaihat zone army commander brought settlers from different areas and took initiative to settle them on our lands.”

Survival International director Stephen Corry said in a statement that the attacks were a “criminal human rights violation.” According to the Survival International, abuses have escalated since the army-backed emergency government came to power in January 2007.

In the Baghaichari area, at least 13 Christian families lived among 77 tribal Buddhist families until the Christians’ homes were burned down in April.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts region comprises three districts: Bandarban, Khagrachuri and Rangamati. The region is surrounded by the Indian states of Tripura on the north and Mizoram on the east, Myanmar on the south and east.  

Report from Compass Direct News

TURKEY: SUSPECT IN MALATYA MURDERS EXPECTED STATE SUPPORT

Journalist allegedly told ringleader officials would not prosecute him for killing Christians.

MALATYA, Turkey, October 21 (Compass Direct News) – Lawyers and judges in the case of three Christians murdered here in April 2007 are continuing to investigate whether the attack was masterminded by troubled youths or shadowy elements of the Turkish state.

Plaintiff attorneys believe the first witness at the hearing on Thursday (Oct. 16), local journalist Varol Bulent Aral, incited the suspected ringleader of the attacks to murder by convincing him foreign missionaries were connected to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a domestic outlawed terrorist organization. The suspected ringleader, Emre Gunaydin, testified that Aral promised him state immunity for the planned attacks.

Two Turkish Christians, Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel, and a German, Tilmann Geske, were brutally tortured and killed at a publishing house in this southeastern city on April 18, 2007.

Gunaydin, along with Salih Gürler, Cuma Ozdemir, Hamit Ceker and Abuzer Yildirim, who have been in jail for the past 18 months, are accused of the murder. They are all between 19 and 21 years old.

The court subpoenaed Aral for the last four hearings, but he failed to show at each one. The 32-year-old testified at Thursday’s hearing at Malatya Third Criminal Court under police custody since he was arrested on Oct. 2 for carrying a false ID.

Gunaydin said during the hearing that Aral had promised him state protection for the murders.

“He had promised me state support,” he said. “[Aral] should explain this to the court.”

But when the judge asked whether Aral had convinced him to commit the murders, Gunaydin claimed his right to remain silent.

Aral, however, denied promising clemency to Gunaydin for murdering the three Christians. He claimed to only have discussed only the PKK with Gunaydin, not Christian missionary activity.

In Gunaydin’s testimony at an August hearing, however, he described Aral as telling him that he saw a connection between missionaries and the PKK. The goal of Christian missionary work in Turkey, Aral reportedly said, was “to destroy the motherland.”

Recent high-level political events in Turkey, however, show that the plausibility of his alleged promise for state protection to Gunaydin and the other four youths may not be unfounded.

In January police uncovered and started arresting members of Ergenekon, an ultranationalist cabal of retired generals, politicians, journalists and mafia members under investigation for conspiracy in recent murders. The indictment has accused 86 suspects, 70 of which are in custody.

A separate criminal investigation has linked the cabal to high-profile attacks, murders and plans to engineer domestic chaos and ultimately overthrow the government. Evidence in the Malatya case indicates that Aral acted as a bridge between the five murder suspects and Ergenekon.

In January Malatya police found Aral’s diary, which mentioned multiple people indicted in Ergenekon and contact information for Kemal Kerincsiz, an ultranationalist lawyer who had charged two Turkish Christians for “insulting Islam.” The court case of Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal has been underway for two years.

In his diary Aral mentioned the duty to “protect the state’s honor.” His frequent comments to media have also raised eyebrows, such as his recent statement that, “I can’t stand that patriots like Veli Kucuk are in prison.”

Kucuk is a retired major general arrested in the Ergenekon case. He has been indicted for threatening Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist who was assassinated in January 2007, and is believed to be a key player in the network, according to Turkish national daily Today’s Zaman.

When Judge Eray Gurtekin asked Aral why his diary mentioned these people, Aral claimed he “received information” and wrote their names down to think about them later. He claimed to be merely compiling information in order to write a book about Ergenekon.

The witness was more elusive when he was asked if he knew Orhan Kemal Cengiz, who leads the team of plaintiff lawyers.

Aral merely said he didn’t know Cengiz. But for the last few months Aral has talked to many journalists in the country’s major cities, trying to prove that Cengiz was the leader of a secret resistance group established by the government responsible for the murders of Hrant Dink, Father Andrea Santoro (a Catholic priest who was killed in 2006), and the Malatya murders.

Judge Gurtekin then asked Aral if he had worked as a police informant for either the police or gendarmerie. He answered, “I have many police and military officers among my friends. We drink tea and talk with each other.”

 

Dark Connections

Plaintiff attorneys have seen some progress in the Malatya trial, which has continued for nearly a year. But they believe it will take time to get to the root of the crime, which they say runs very deep.

“It has become very clear for everyone that there is this very dark, complex, sophisticated web of relations behind the scenes, but we can’t pick them out or prove them beyond reasonable doubt for the time being,” said Cengiz. “We are stuck. Everyone sees that some of the witnesses are not witnesses at all – they are either aiding and abetting or a member of the gang. Some people like Bulent Aral are there to create a cloak of confusion that you can’t get past.”

Aral was arrested last year while in possession of a Kalashnikov assault rifle, which he claims he had confiscated from a 10-year-old, and was arrested while en route to a police station to hand over the gun. A week before the three Christians were killed in 2007, Gunaydin visited Aral in prison.

Plaintiff attorneys said that as defendant Abuzer Yildirim and Aral were leaving the courtroom after the court’s adjournment, they noticed Aral tell Yildirim face-to-face, “Look around carefully. This may be the last time you see these things before you die.”

The plaintiff attorneys said that Aral may not have been threatening him with this statement, but instead warning him about other threats or possible dangers stemming from the case, according to Haberturk news Website.

Following the last testimony, five knives, two guns and blood-stained clothes of the suspects found at the crime scene were shown to the court.

The plaintiff attorneys requested the Ergenekon file from the 13th High Criminal Court of Istanbul on Aug. 12. They have not yet received the file, but hope to find a relationship between the Malatya and Ergenekon investigations and possibly combine them.

The next hearing is scheduled in Malatya for Nov. 21.  

Report from Compass Direct News