Police in Istanbul detained at least 32 suspects on 11 March, including several municipal employees from the municipalities of Ataşehir, Maltepe, Sarıyer and Şişli, accused of organising an illegal scheme to raise funds to finance the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front-Party (DHKP-C) terrorist group, responsible for several attacks and murders in Turkey in recent years.
Turkish media sources reported that the police carried out simultaneous raids at 31 locations early on Tuesday, mainly in Istanbul but also in other places in the provinces of Izmir, Bursa and Samsun. Among those detained are several former municipal employees who worked between 2014 and 2016 – the period under investigation – in the municipalities of Ataşehir, Maltepe, Sarıyer and Şişli, four districts of Istanbul, all of them controlled by the CHP, Turkey’s main opposition party.
The investigation, as revealed by the Turkish press, was initiated as a result of the testimony of a repentant member of the DHKP-C, who said that the terrorist organisation took control of a textile company that had suffered problems after the dismissal of several of its workers and the non-payment of wages; apparently, the suspects were part of an illegal trade union movement linked to the terrorist group that ended up taking control of the aforementioned company.
Already under the control of the DHKP-C, between 2014 and 2015 the company took part in several public tenders organised by the Sarıyer and Şişli municipalities, which the company managed to win illegally thanks to municipal employees who were part of the plot, making profits from the sale of products to the municipalities well above their normal price.
Several senior municipal officials among those arrested
In total, arrest warrants were issued for 38 suspects, although only 32 could be located. Among those arrested is Kalender Özdemir, who during the years under investigation worked as deputy mayor of Ataşehir and is currently a board member of the company Medya A.Ş., linked to Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and its mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu.
Other suspects are Abdullah Der, also a former deputy mayor of the Ataşehir district; Haydar Battal, former deputy mayor of Maltepe and currently a senior official in the Ataşehir municipality; Melih Morsümbül (currently wanted), who was secretary to the mayor of Maltepe and later deputy mayor of the Şehzadeler district in Manisa; Sinan Çetiz, who worked as an official responsible for granting municipal licences in Maltepe municipality; or Hatice Yazlık, who in those years worked in the department of press and publications of the municipality of Sarıyer. There is also an arrest warrant for Şükrü Genç, former mayor of Sarıyer.
The DHKP-C was founded in the 90s as a splinter group of a larger organisation with Marxist-Leninist ideology created in the 70s, responsible for several attacks in Turkey including the assassination of several Turkish politicians. With a much lower operational capacity than the PKK, and after suffering several major blows at the beginning of this century that practically finished off the organisation, the terrorist group was believed to have been dissolved until it re-emerged again in the last decade, being responsible for several suicide bombings, kidnappings and murders, and even going so far as to plan the assassination of Erdoğan.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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