If only you had told the whole story, Mr. Uzun
I met former National Police Department Intelligence Unit head Sabri Uzun in the early 2000s. He was the acting head of Police Intelligence Unit when I met him.
Sabri Uzun has been appointed three times by three different ministers as head of National Police Department Intelligence Unit, between 1997 and 2006. Hence he has been removed from the office by three different ministers. He says in his book that his intelligence career began in 1978 after he had completed an intelligence course.
When I took Sabri Uzun’s book in my hand, I felt sad even before opening its cover and I said to myself “Mr. Uzun, this is unbecoming of you.”
Sabri Uzun titled his book as “İN (Lair).” However, Mr. Uzun, who has had a career in intelligence for 30 years in Turkey, could have found a more interesting title for his book. An intelligence executive with 30 years’ experience should not be in need of the word “İN”, which is used in politics as part of war language. Besides, Sabri Uzun has long served with the colleagues he accuses now, in police department buildings that are called as “İN” by politicians. Sabri Uzun may have been offended at these colleagues, but he should not have lowered the tone so much.
Was the fighter aircraft also a plot?
Let’s look at the contents of the book.
I am not going to broach the subject of Sabri Uzun’s evaluations about the Police Department in this column. Because most of them have been talked about and discussed for years now. I am going to dwell on what he wrote about politicians and Turkish Armed Forces.
Sabri Uzun mentions in many places in his book the plots that had been laid against then-Prime Minister Erdoğan and Turkish Armed Forces. For example, “We received a tip about sabotage to Prime Minister’s plane. It was the Community [Hizmet Movement] that gave the tip. The goal was to get Tayyip Erdoğan under their thumb.”
Let’s assume what Sabri Uzun wrote is true. Then, who ordered the pilot of a fighter aircraft to fly low over Prime Minister Erdoğan’s house in Keçiören neighborhood of Ankara? When the plane hit the minaret of a mosque near Erdoğan’s house, did not Erdoğan take pieces of the minaret and of the plane’s tail from the courtyard of the mosque with him to the National Security Council (MGK) meeting? Did not he put these pieces on a table and show them to the generals at the meeting?
Let’s suppose that all the attempted assassinations of Tayyip Erdoğan were plots, just as Sabri Uzun says. Then, did not Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party–Front (DHKP-C) militants, who were caught later, confess that they had planned to assassinate Erdogan as he attended the wedding of his son Bilal at the Lütfü Kırdar Convention and Exhibition Center in Istanbul? Aren’t these records still kept in police archives?
Hilmi Özkök and Sabri Uzun
I have first heard about the attempted assassination of then-Chief of General Staff General Hilmi Özkök from Sabri Uzun in a private conversation years ago. Uzun told me about the conversation he had with Major General Alaattin Parmaksız, who was working for the General Staff intelligence at the time, when he went to the General Staff Headquarters. Uzun said two high-ranking military officers were behind the assassination plan.
Sabri Uzun cites in his book what he said to General Alaattin Parmaksız at the General Staff Headquarters:
“Two persons are planning to assassinate the Commander [General Özkök]. Let them finish their job. If they kill the Commander, then I know what I am going to do to their children.”
“But,” adds Sabri Uzun, “I see it now that the attempted assassination of General Hilmi Özkök was also a plot. My colleagues, who were affiliated with the Community, deceived and convinced me, too back then.”
However, it is known that the tip-off about the attempted assassination of General Hilmi Özkök came from a military attaché of a foreign country in Ankara and that the routes used by Özkök in his daily activities were changed and security measures were greatly intensified.
Sabri Uzun says he saw Sabri Ok, who participated in Oslo talks on behalf of the PKK, accompanied by the National Intelligence Agency (MİT) members in 2006. But the information he gives is incomplete. Because he knows very well that Sabri Ok has been meeting with military-civilian intelligence units since 1996-97.
- Created on .