Driver of FETÖ suspect confesses links to academic assassination

ISTANBUL

The driver of a FETÖ suspect, accused of organizing the 2002 assassination of Necip Hablemitoğlu, an academic in Ankara University, has confessed the group’s connections with the murder name by name, the daily Milliyet has reported.

The daily published on Nov. 30 the statements of N.A., who worked for Enver Altaylı, a former MİT [Turkish National Intelligence Organization] employee, that took place in the prosecutor’s indictment presented to the court.

According to the daily, Altaylı organized the plan upon main FETÖ member Mustafa Özcan’s order.

“I worked for Altaylı between 1996 and 2017 as a driver and a personal assistant,” N.A. said in his statement. Noting that Altaylı was calling Özcan via his phone not to be wiretapped, N.A. added, “The duo used to make in person meetings.”

One of them was a meeting with Altaylı, Özcan and Halil Şıvgın, then-health minister, in 2002.

“I took both [Altaylı and Özcan] to Şıvgın’s office. After an hour, Altaylı came out and I took him home.”

N.A. pointed out this meeting as he said he “eavesdropped a conversation between Altaylı and Özcan” in the next days in 2002.

“[In a room that I was in] Özcan said, ‘We could not solve the case about Necip [Hablemitoğlu] with Şıvgın. This man is damaging our [FETÖ] movement. We need to handle this,’ to Altaylı.”

According to N.A., Altaylı hinted offering a hitman.

“Altaylı, then asked, ‘How can I help? There is an inmate who will be free in one and a half years. Let’s wait for him.’ But Özcan said, ‘We can’t wait.’ I left the room at this point and do not know what they talked about after.”

Born in 1954, Hablemitoğlu was an academic known for his works on Turkish minorities in Europe, the Balkans and Asia. His first book was about the exodus of the Crimean Turks.

He was assassinated on Dec. 18, 2002, when he was penning a book named “Köstebek [Mole],” about FETÖ. The unfinished book, which was published after his death, alleged that FETÖ members were in contact with various intelligence services and serving information to them.

The FETÖ and its U.S.-based leader, Fetullah Gülen, orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, in which 251 people were killed.

The Hablemitoğlu assassination came to the country’s agenda after two decades when Nuri Gökhan Bozkır, one of the FETÖ suspects, made some confessions after being captured by MİT in December 2019.

“I have nothing to say,” Şıvgın said when daily Milliyet correspondents called after seeing N.A.’s statements in the indictment.