It began by a chance discovery after a car accident on 3 November 1996 near Susurluk in Balıkesir province in Turkey. In this accident, former Deputy Chief of Istanbul Police Hüseyin Kocadağ, the leader of the Grey Wolves (Nationalist Action Party’s violent youth organization) Abdullah Çatlı, and a woman named Gonca Us (Abdullah Çatlı's girlfriend, a Turkish beauty queen turned mafia hit-woman) died; DYP Şanlıurfa MP Sedat Bucak, who was also the leader of a large group of village guards in Siverek, was injured. This coalition exposed the connections between the security forces, politicians and organized crime.

Abdullah Çatlı was a convicted fugitive, who had been wanted for drug trafficking and murder. Evidence seized at the crash site indicated that he had been carrying:

• diplomatic credentials, given by the Turkish authorities
• a government-approved weapons permit
• six ID cards, each with a different name; Lucy Komisar writes that "At the scene of the Mercedes-Benz crash, Turkish investigators found Çatli with a fake passport. "The person on this photo, Mehmet Özbay, serves as a specialist for the police directorate and he is allowed to carry guns." Mehmet Özbay was an alias -- the very same alias that Mehmet Ali Agca had on his own passport."
• several handguns, and silencers
• a cache of narcotics.
• thousands of US dollars.

When it became obvious that Çatli was a police collaborator, the Turkish Interior Minister resigned. Several high-ranking law enforcement officers, including Istanbul's police chief, were suspended. And the red-hot scandal eventually endangered the careers of other senior government officials.

A Parliamentary Investigation Commission established after the accident published a 350-page Susurluk Report in April 1997. The Commission’s report maintained that the state organs used the Grey Wolves and that some state forces initiated the right-left conflicts in the 1970s.

Sürekli Aydınlık İçin Bir Dakika Karanlık

See also

• Gladio

References