Deep state case convict Ağar released from jail

AYDIN

Former Turkish Interior and Justice Minister and Police Chief Mehmet Ağar was released today. DHA photo

Former Turkish Interior and Justice Minister and Police Chief Mehmet Ağar was released after one year and four days in a prison in the western province of Aydın.

Ağar, who was charged with “establishing an armed organization to commit crime” as part of the Susurluk deep state case, was sentenced for five years and was to stay in jail for two years.

Earlier this year, Ağar’s lawyers applied to the court and demanded he be released on probation in accordance with the recently passed fourth judicial package.

According to the ruling, convicts who have one year left in their sentences can apply for probation. Daily Hürriyet said Ağar would either have to perform community service or go to the police department to sign in regularly. It has not yet been clarified how Ağar will spend his probation.

In the late 1990s the Susurluk case, aimed at unveiling a shadowy illegal organization known as the “deep state,” began after a traffic accident involving a parliamentarian, a police official and a fugitive rightist militant.

The case uncovered the relationship between the country’s mafia, police and political figures. It was claimed that the deep state had been responsible for many unsolved crimes.

On Nov. 3, 1996, a car rear ended a truck in Susurluk town, which later became the namesake of the infamous case. Nationalist militant Abdullah Çatlı, Police Chief Hüseyin Kocadağ and model Gonca Us died in the accident, while Sedat Edip Bucak, a deputy from the center-right True Path Party (DYP), was injured.