Uğur Mumcu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007)
Uğur Mumcu
Born August 22, 1942(1942-08-22)
Kırşehir
Died January 24, 1993 (aged 50)
Ankara
Notable credit(s) editorial opinion columnist and investigative journalist in Cumhuriyet

Uğur Mumcu (August 22, 1942 – January 24, 1993[1]) was a Turkish Kemalist intellectual, investigative journalist and columnist for the leading liberal broadsheet, Cumhuriyet. He was killed one morning outside his home by a bomb placed in his car on January 24 1993.[1]

Contents

[edit] Biography

Uğur Mumcu was born as the third of four siblings in Kırşehir, where his father was working. He went to school in Ankara and in 1961 attended School of Law at Ankara University.[1] After graduation in 1965, he practiced law for a while. He then visited England to learn English and upon his return to Turkey worked as a teaching assistant at Ankara University from 1969 to 1972.

He started to write in his university years, first in the magazine Yön and then in several other leftist periodicals. Between 1968 and 1970, he wrote articles on politics for the newspapers Akşam, Cumhuriyet and Milliyet.

Arrested shortly after the 1971 military coup, he was tortured. Later, Mumcu wrote that his torturers had told him: "We are the counterguerrilla. Even the President of the Republic cannot touch us."[2]

In 1974, Uğur Mumcu started a career as a columnist,[1] with the periodical Yeni Ortam and from 1975 on, in the broadsheet newspaper Cumhuriyet, which he continued until his death (apart from a few months in 1991 when he was in dispute with the management).

Uğur Mumcu also published books on current and historical political issues of Turkey. He was investigating the Kurdistan Workers' Party at the time of his assassination.

[edit] Assassination

On the morning of January 24, 1993, he left his home and was killed by a C-4 plastic bomb as he started his car. Although his assassination was long thought to have been ordered by Islamists, documents found during the 2008 Ergenekon investigations at General Veli Küçük's house showed that Mumcu was killed while he was investigating how 100,000 firearms, owned by the Turkish Armed Forces, ended up in the hands of Jalal Talabani, one of the Kurdish leaders of northern Iraq and, as of 2008, president of Iraq.[3] 25 days after Mumcu, General Eşref Bitlis, who was investigating on the same issue, died in a plane accident, most likely caused by a sabotage.[3]

PKK/JITEM informant Abdülkadir Aygan alleges that the assassination was carried out by JITEM operatives including Ahmet Cem Ersever, who had a briefcase of about 20kg of C-4, obtained from a Vietnam veteran. Aygan added that he and Aytekin Özen had used some of the C-4 to assassinate the President of the Diyarbakir Bar, Mustafa Özer. The unnamed American soldier had allegedly given the explosives to the Regional Emergency Governorate (Turkish: Olağanüstü Hal Bölge Valiliği) in 1991 or 1992.[4]

Uğur Mumcu's brother, Ceyhan Mumcu, disputes allegations that Ergenekon was involved, finding the evidence weak. He suspects Israel's involvement since they supported Barzani and Talabani in the Gulf War and their ambassador to Turkey summoned Uğur, the only journalist to write about this, shortly before his death.[5]

[edit] Family

Uğur Mumcu is survived by his wife Güldal, and their children Özgür and Özge Mumcu. Güldal Mumcu and her children established the Uğur Mumcu Investigative Journalism Foundation (um:ag, Turkish: Uğur Mumcu Araştırmacı Gazetecilik Vakfı) in October 1994.[1] Güldal Mumcu is currently a member of Turkish parliament.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e About, um:ag
  2. ^ Lucy Komisar, Turkey's terrorists: a CIA legacy lives on, The Progressive, April 1997 (English)
  3. ^ a b Ergenekon linked to Mumcu murder, Today's Zaman, 5 August 2008
  4. ^ Unlu, Ferhat (2008-08-25). "Mumcu'yu öldüren C-4 ABD'li eski askerden" (in Turkish), Sabah. Retrieved on 2008-08-27. "Ersever'in valizinde yaklaşık 20 kilo C-4 olduğunu gözlerimle gördüm. Bu patlayıcıları 1991 ya da 92'de Vietnam gazisi bir Amerikalı adam Olağanüstü Hal Bölge Valiliği'ne vermişti. Ersever de patlayıcıları oradan aldı." 
  5. ^ "MİT belgesi gerçek, kardeşimi İsrail öldürdü", Zaman (2008-08-12). Retrieved on 2008-08-27. 

[edit] External links


 This article about a Turkish writer or poet is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
 This article about a European writer or poet is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U%C4%9Fur_Mumcu"
Personal tools