MURDER IN ANATOLIA - European Stability Initiative - ESI

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Dogan wrote that in 2005 Burhan Coskun, the head of the Malatya chapter of the Ulku
Ocaklari called him to the provincial office of the MHP. 138 There, Coskun and others present
asked Dogan to kill the Christians at the Zirve office.
“Namik Hakan Durhan, the former MHP Member of Parliament from Malatya, told me
that „You will call the Zirve Publishing house and threaten them.‟ I called them, Adnan
from Zirve answered and I threatened him. 139 After threatening I hung up the phone.”
“„This job suits you my lion, you will do it. You will kill whoever there is at Zirve,‟ [they
told me]. Then the man who had introduced himself as major general said we will save
you, don‟t worry at all. Namik Hakan Durhan explained how to finish the job and that in
the end they would give me 300,000 USD. He said that they would inform me about the
place and the date of the murder.” 140
During a hearing in May 2008 Emre denied even having heard of Metin Dogan. 141 Still, the
court called Dogan as a witness. 142 He testified on 4 July:
“I am quite close with Emre. We were together in the Ulku Ocaklari. I am also an athlete.
I was involved in tae-kwon-do, Emre was involved in kickboxing. He is lying. He knows
me. I have a lot of information about the event. I was involved in it when Emre was not
yet in. I grew up in Ulku Ocaklari.” 143
In court Dogan described again the meeting where he was allegedly invited to kill the
Christians:
“Burhan Coskun, the Ulku Ocaklari Malatya president, called me on my mobile in
August 2005. He said that I should come to the MHP building [the office of the
Nationalist Movement Partyi]. I went. The MHP provincial president Ekici, the ex-MP
Namik Hakan Durhan (MHP) and a 50-55 year old man named Hikmet Celik who
introduced himself as a major general and whom I had not seen before, and Burhan
Coskun were there. I sat down. We had discussed the distribution of bibles and the deceit
of the young before in Ulku Ocaklari ... I should get two strong youngsters and raid the
publishing house with them, but those youngsters shouldn‟t know them. They asked me
not to take them from Ulku Ocaklari. They told me to find them in Tastepe [a quarter in
the northeast of Malatya].
138 Coskun had participated in the protests against the Christian publishing house Kayra in Malatya.
139 Umut Sahin from the Association of Protestant Churches told ESI that according to missionary Martin de
Lange convert Huseyin Yelki [see Cast of Characters] sometimes used the name Adnan when answering the
phone in the Zirve office, ESI-Interview, 5 October 2010. Martin de Lange worked from 2003 to 2005 with
Huseyin Yelki in the Kayra office in Malatya.
140 Letter from Metin Dogan, 5 February 2008; Dogan also told the court why he did not come forward with his
information before: “The farmhouse of my relative Abdullah Suluk was shot at twice because of the Zirve
Publishing house murder … There are still broken windows, and bullet shells on the ground from shots in the
walls and doors ... Their only goal is to threaten. The reason is that Abdullah Suluk who is my relative is
protecting me and I am next to him in his prison cell.” Abdullah Suluk was one of the leading names in
Turkey‟s mafia wars in the 90s. Hurriyet called him a “mafia godfather” in 1998. Hurriyet, “Olum ucgeninde
kelepceli infaz” [Handcuffed execution in the death triangle], 14 August 1998, Milliyet dubbed him a “death
machine” in 1999. Milliyet, “Olum makinesinin cezasi onandi” [The sentence against the death machine
approved], 4 April 1999. http://www.milliyet.com.tr/1999/04/04/haber/hab09.html. He was involved in 14
murder cases and numerous injuries. He was sentenced to death in 1998. The penality was then commuted to a
lifelong sentence. http://webarsiv.hurriyet.com.tr/1998/08/14/61028.asp.
141 Protocol of the 7 th Court Hearing, 12 May 2008, p. 11.
142 Protocol of the 8 th Court Hearing, 9 June 2008, p. 10.
143 Protocol of the 9 th Court Hearing, 4 July 2008, p. 6.
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