Judges of the 13th Higher Criminal Court hearing the case against Ergenekon, a clandestine criminal network suspected of plotting to overthrow the government, have been given a report including an organizational chart that names the top leader of the terrorist organization, whose identity had not previously been uncovered during the prosecutors' investigation.


The İstanbul court is hearing the case in a makeshift courtroom inside Silivri Prison, where the suspects kept in custody for the duration of the trial are being held. The report, prepared by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) in 2002, was finally submitted to the court on Thursday.

The prosecution had previously mapped out a chart showing the organizational structure of the group. This chart was published by the Sabah daily in late September. It did not reveal the identity of the ultimate leader of the group, but established the alleged roles of most of the organization's suspected members.

The second person in the hierarchy in the prosecution's chart was Fikret Emek, who is currently being held under arrest in the Ergenekon case. According to the prosecution, Emek directly reported to the unidentified leader, who directly supervised six separate cell units in addition to Emek.

The names of the people in charge of most of these units were also not shown in the chart. These six units were called Intelligence Department Command, Intelligence Analysis Command, Operations Department Command, Financing Administration (marked "civilian"), Intra-organization Research Department Command and the Theory Design and Planning Department (also marked "civilian").

So far no details about the actual content of the MİT report have been made available to the press. It is not clear whether the identity of top leader in the MİT chart will be made public any time soon, or how much of the chart coincides with the findings of the prosecution.

Yalazangil's testimony

In yesterday's hearing, suspect Mete Yalazangil gave his testimony. He denied the prosecution's claim that retired Capt. Muzaffer Tekin, another Ergenekon suspect, had ordered him to talk with Ergenekon suspect Semih Tufan Gülaltay. "Taking orders from someone would not match our honor and pride. We use requests in our relationships," he said.

He argued that his only link to the case was a CD he had given to Tekin's assistant some years ago that was later found in Tekin's office during the Ergenekon investigation. This CD, he said, had information about an army officer who had swindled a former police officer out of YTL 150,000. "I was expecting an investigation about this CD, but I was confronted with interesting police reports and court decisions," he told the court. He denied having any knowledge of "The Lobby," a document that the prosecution argues lays out the main structure and targets of the Ergenekon organization.

The existence of Ergenekon has long been suspected, but the current investigation into the group began only in 2007, when a house in İstanbul's Ümraniye district that was being used as an arms depot was discovered by police.

The indictment, made public in July, claims that the Ergenekon network is behind a series of political assassinations carried out over the past two decades for the ultimate purpose of triggering a military coup and taking over the government. The victims include secularist journalist Uğur Mumcu, long believed to have been assassinated by Islamic extremists in 1993; the head of a business conglomerate, Özdemir Sabancı, who was shot dead by militants of the extreme-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) in his high-security office in 1996; and secularist academic Necip Hablemitoğlu, who was also believed to have been killed by Islamic extremists in 2002.

Suspects face various accusations, including "membership in an armed terrorist group," "attempting to destroy the government," "inciting people to rebel against the Republic of Turkey" and other similar crimes.


TODAYSZAMAN