Three arrested over plans to assassinate Kurds
10 September 2009, Thursday
TODAY'S ZAMAN WITH WIRES İSTANBUL
Police have raided a group of homes in Iğdır, arresting three people on charges of planning to assassinate Kurdish politicians and businessmen as part of efforts to sabotage the government's recently announced democratic initiative to solve the Kurdish problem.
According to reports, police arrested three people who had allegedly formed a death squad to kill notable Kurdish personalities. The raids took place on Monday night at the homes of Mücahit Yalçın, the president of the Iğdır branch of the Grey Wolves ultranationalist group, and Turan Çevik, the former head of the Melekli district's Grey Wolves branch.
Police searches of the homes yielded documents that detailed plans to sabotage the government's newly launched democratic initiative on the Kurdish problem. Among the documents was a hit list listing the names of Kurdish businessmen and politicians to be killed to harm the government initiative. Also seized was a Kalashnikov rifle and ammunition.
Yalçın, Çevik and his son Kamil Çevik were arrested by order of the Iğdır state prosecutor and sent to Iğdır Prison. Police are reportedly still searching for one individual, Zafer Ağrıdağ, in connection with the death squad. Police had been monitoring Ağrıdağ and Turan Çevik ahead of the raids, and they say that suspicious conversations between the two helped lay the ground for the police bust.
Ağrıdağ one of Küçük's soldiers'
The police raid reportedly took place after a period of police monitoring of Zafer Ağrıdağ. Ağrıdağ, who in 2000 served in the military alongside retired Gen. Veli Küçük -- among the defendants in the ongoing trial over Ergenekon, a clandestine deep-state group that plotted to overthrow the government -- had been taken into custody and interrogated following a Jan. 31, 2009 raid by Iğdır police on his home as part of the Ergenekon investigation. In the search of his home, police had confiscated a journal in which he praised Küçük.
In 2007, Ağrıdağ had been caught by police when he and a friend, İsfandiyar Ekinci, traveled to İstanbul as part of a plan to steal a ship traveling from Lapseki to Gallipoli in protest of the public usage of the slogan We're all Armenian following the assassination of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink.
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10 September 2009, Thursday
TODAY'S ZAMAN WITH WIRES İSTANBUL
Police have raided a group of homes in Iğdır, arresting three people on charges of planning to assassinate Kurdish politicians and businessmen as part of efforts to sabotage the government's recently announced democratic initiative to solve the Kurdish problem.
According to reports, police arrested three people who had allegedly formed a death squad to kill notable Kurdish personalities. The raids took place on Monday night at the homes of Mücahit Yalçın, the president of the Iğdır branch of the Grey Wolves ultranationalist group, and Turan Çevik, the former head of the Melekli district's Grey Wolves branch.
Police searches of the homes yielded documents that detailed plans to sabotage the government's newly launched democratic initiative on the Kurdish problem. Among the documents was a hit list listing the names of Kurdish businessmen and politicians to be killed to harm the government initiative. Also seized was a Kalashnikov rifle and ammunition.
Yalçın, Çevik and his son Kamil Çevik were arrested by order of the Iğdır state prosecutor and sent to Iğdır Prison. Police are reportedly still searching for one individual, Zafer Ağrıdağ, in connection with the death squad. Police had been monitoring Ağrıdağ and Turan Çevik ahead of the raids, and they say that suspicious conversations between the two helped lay the ground for the police bust.
Ağrıdağ one of Küçük's soldiers'
The police raid reportedly took place after a period of police monitoring of Zafer Ağrıdağ. Ağrıdağ, who in 2000 served in the military alongside retired Gen. Veli Küçük -- among the defendants in the ongoing trial over Ergenekon, a clandestine deep-state group that plotted to overthrow the government -- had been taken into custody and interrogated following a Jan. 31, 2009 raid by Iğdır police on his home as part of the Ergenekon investigation. In the search of his home, police had confiscated a journal in which he praised Küçük.
In 2007, Ağrıdağ had been caught by police when he and a friend, İsfandiyar Ekinci, traveled to İstanbul as part of a plan to steal a ship traveling from Lapseki to Gallipoli in protest of the public usage of the slogan We're all Armenian following the assassination of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink.
Link
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