Former Turkish commanders to testify on 2007 killings of Christians

PanARMENIAN.Net - An Istanbul prosecutor has summoned three former military commanders and a former university rector to testify in a court case probing the 2007 killings of three Christian missionaries in the eastern province of Malatya, Today’s Zaman reported.

Prosecutor Cihan Kansız, specially authorized to investigate the killings, has summoned ret. Gen. Hurşit Tolon, a former 1st Army Corps commander; Şener Eruygur, a retired general who formerly served as the commander of the Gendarmerie General Command and spent much of his retirement heading a nationalist group known as the Atatürkist Thought Association (ADD); ret. Gen. Hasan Iğsız; and former rector of İnönü University, Fatih Hilmioğlu, to testify as part of the Zirve investigation.

All four men are defendants in Ergenekon case, which investigates a shadowy network of state bureaucrats and criminal elements believed to have plotted a coup against the government. On April 18, 2007, Necati Aydın (35), Uğur Yüksel and German national Tilmann Ekkehart Geske (46) - all Christians - were tied to their chairs, tortured and stabbed at the Zirve Publishing House in the southeastern Anatolian city of Malatya before their throats were slit. The publishing house they worked for printed Bibles and Christian literature. A total of nine men have been charged in connection with the murders.

Erdal Doğan, a lawyer for the victims' families, had claimed that Gen. Tolon frequently visited Malatya prior to the murder and gave anti-missionary briefings and speeches.

Doğan says Tolon and other Ergenekon suspects, including Eruygur, frequently visited Malatya in those days and conducted an anti-missionary campaign with the help of İnönü University instructors such as Ruhi Abat and the university rector, Hilmioğlu.

The Malatya murders are thought to be a part of the Cage Action Plan, a subversive plot allegedly devised by military officers that sought to undermine the government through the assassination of non-Muslims and other acts of terror. The Cage plan was allegedly drawn up upon orders from the Ergenekon network. Cage plan documents specifically call the killings of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, Catholic priest Father Andrea Santoro and the three Christians in Malatya an “operation.”