On July 10, news broke that several high-profile political murders of the 1990s were carried out with the knowledge of the Turkish state. There is now evidence that the state was indeed in command. The Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) submitted, upon the request of the prosecutor, voice recordings and a transcript of a conversation dating back to 1995 between two of its former employees. One of them was the former head of the MIT Counterterrorism Unit.
Some 18 separate, unsolved murder cases from the 1990s were still in the courts as the MIT released the notorious 13-page transcript. The victims were mostly, but not exclusively, Kurdish businessmen, activists and intellectuals. In addition, further killing lists included singers and other famous names. A former MIT employee, Yaman Namli, testified that these lists were approved by the Special Warfare Command and the National Security Council (MGK).
The MIT has shared crucial documentation in the last year concerning two high-profile cases known as the Sept. 12 and Feb. 28 cases. All of these cases were part of a battle Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had publicly promised: for further democratization and curtailing the powers of the “deep state.” The Justice and Development Party (AKP) takes pride in the struggle to face the past and to clean its slate. “State within the state” and now the “parallel state” rhetoric all follow in this logic. In this endeavor, the MIT has been cooperating with the prosecutors’ requests, which has set a precedent quite different from previous traditions. Previously, the MIT was known to brush off these demands or share much less. Keen observers of the institution refer to this as the “Hakan Fidan [the current undersecretary of National Intelligence] difference.”
The MIT has gone beyond the regular call of duty because the evidence that was shared with the courts indeed incriminates the MIT. Hence, it is fair to say that for the first time in its history, the MIT is willingly cooperating in an investigation that puts the organization itself on the hot seat.
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