5 arrested in Bahçeli plot

ADANA - Doğan News Agency

AA photo

Fourteen people have been detained in the southern province of Adana for allegedly planning to assassinate a nationalist opposition leader.

Police raided homes and businesses simultaneously in four provinces yesterday as part of an investigation into the Turkish Revenge Organization Resistance Movement, a previously unknown ultranationalist militant organization. The detained were planning to assassinate Devlet Bahçeli, leader of Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), according to allegations.

The alleged members of the group, nine of whom were sent to court while the other five were arrested, allegedly planned to kill Bahçeli because he was allegedly hindering the nationalist movement.
Police sources said the group sought to assassinate Bahçeli on Oct. 5 during a trip to the southern province of Osmaniye, the MHP leader’s hometown and the area that he represents in Parliament.
The suspects were also allegedly planning to kill Francis Dondu, a priest in Adana, but Dondu was not present at the time of the planned attack.

Police sources also said the group was targeting a number of Kurdish citizens and senior executives of the MHP and Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). The names and addresses of those on the list were reportedly found in the operation.

The Adana Police Department began observing the structure of the group on social media nearly a year ago. They found that the leader of the illegal group, 40-year-old S.Ç., was an Ankara man who identified himself as a soldier.