Former Turkish minister sentenced to 5 years in prison

PanARMENIAN.Net - A prominent Turkish politician who held the posts of interior minister and justice minister in the mid-1990s has been sentenced to five years in prison on charges of establishing an armed organization to commit crime.

The Hurriyet Daily News reported that the Ankara 11th Court for Serious Crimes sentenced Mehmet Ağar as a part of the Susurluk trial, which deals with a scandal involving the close relationship between the government, the security forces and organized crime.

The court initially sentenced Ağar to four years, a punishment that was then increased by half to six years since he was a leader of the organization, and finally reduced to five years for his good conduct during the trial process. If the sentence is approved by the Supreme Court of Appeals, Ağar will spent two years in prison under the Law on Enforcement of Sentences.

Ağar, who was convicted for his actions when he held the post of chief of police, from July 1993 to 1995, when he was elected as a True Path Party, or DYP, deputy, was the latest suspect on trial in the Susurluk case. His trial began in 2007 when he lost his parliamentary immunity.

The politician also served as the country’s justice minister between March and July 1996 and the interior minister between July and November 1996.

In a written statement made public by his lawyers Thursday, Ağar said he had a clear conscience. “I’m sure that this verdict, which is not parallel with the evidence, and the contents of the file will be corrected by the Supreme Court of Appeals; I ask everybody to respect the ongoing judicial process,” he said.

The Susurluk scandal exposed links between the police, mafia and politicians and emerged after a car accident in the town of Susurluk, in the northwestern province of Balıkesir, on Oct. 3, 1996. Hüseyin Kocadağ, a former police chief, high-profile criminal Abdullah Çatlı and Sedat Bucak, a Kurdish landlord and deputy from the DYP, were all found in the crashed car, along with several weapons and identity cards.

In February 2008, charges were filed against Ağar for “establishing an armed organization to commit crime, not to reveal the whereabouts of Abdullah Çatlı, who was wanted for murder, and for gross misconduct by providing Çatlı and Yaşar Öz with permits to carry arms and high-level green [special] passports.”’