MURDER IN ANATOLIA - European Stability Initiative - ESI

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organisation (Ulku Ocaklari) had also organised demonstrations against Christians. In 2008
both Veli Kucuk and Levent Temiz, the head of the Istanbul branch of the Ulku Ocaklari,
who had personally threatened journalist Hrant Dink, were arrested and put on trial, charged
with being members of Ergenekon.
The lawyers representing the Malatya victims‟ families have also pointed to similarities
between different attacks on Christians in 2006 and 2007. Hrant Dink was killed in Istanbul
in early 2007, shortly before the Malatya murders, by another young ultranationalist, who had
in fact been under permanent observation by the gendarmerie and police. The alleged
instigator in the Hrant Dink murder case, Yasin Hayal, who is currently on trial, had
numerous links to the gendarmerie. Yasin Hayal paid regular visits to the Trabzon branch of
the gendarmerie intelligence department, whose branch director supposedly described Hayal
as “a solid boy, a clean one, [who] will do good work in the future.” 5 This notwithstanding
the fact that in 2002 Yasin Hayal had beaten the Catholic priest in the Santa Maria Church in
Trabzon so badly that the priest was in coma for days (in 2006 the successor priest in Santa
Maria Church, Italian Andrea Santoro, was killed by another ultranationalist youth). In
addition Hayal‟s brother-in-law had been a gendarmerie informant who warned his superiors
in the gendarmerie in Trabzon in 2006 that Hrant Dink would be murdered. 6
The lawyers representing the Malatya victims‟ families argued in a long letter to the court in
April 2010 for the missionary murder case to be merged with one of the Ergenekon trials.
They also pointed to the Cage Operation Action Plan (“Kafes Operasyonu Eylem Plani”), an
alleged plot prepared by parts of the Turkish military to intimidate and assassinate non-
Muslims in Turkey in order to create an atmosphere of chaos. The plan was made public in
2009. The first sentence of the plan refers to the killings of Priest Santoro (in Trabzon in
2006), the murder of Hrant Dink (in 2007) and the Malatya murders as “operations”. 7 The
judges in Malatya have not yet made a decision on this request by the lawyers.
So far 30 court hearings have taken place in the Malatya trial. At the most recent hearing in
December 2010 a new defence lawyer representing the suspects once again accused the
murdered Christians of “planning to eliminate our religion, dividing up our country, bribing
our people and financially supporting terror organisations.” He also tried to intimidate the
judges, shouting that “this is a Protestant court.” 8 The next hearing will take place on 20
January 2011. Considering the seriousness of the charges, it is striking how little attention has
been paid to the Malatya trial in recent months in Turkish and international media. For
anybody who is genuinely interested in understanding contemporary Turkish politics, and the
spectacular court cases which currently look into the dark world of ultranationalist
associations and their links to different parts of the state, the Malatya murder trial is a very
good place to start.
5 Fethiye Cetin and Deniz Tuna, Third Year Report on Hrant Dink‟s Murder, p. 8.
6 For more on the Turkish gendarmerie and the Hrant Dink case read the excellent chapter in a recent
publication by one of Turkey‟s leading think-tanks, Tesev: Almanac p. 180.
7 Full text of the plan: http://www.esiweb.org/pdf/turkey%20-
%20Operation%20Cage%20(Kafes)%20Action%20Plan%20(English%20translation).pdf.
8 Protocol of the 30 th court hearing, 3 December 2010; statement by lawyer Mert Eryilmaz.
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