Late president Özal’s son still not convinced

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

Ahmet Özal, the son of the late former president Turgut Özal, speaks at a press conference in Istanbul on the speculations that his father was poisoned. AA photo

Ahmet Özal, the son of the late former president Turgut Özal, is unconvinced that his father was not murdered and contends the forensics report proved claims of his murder.

Özal held a press conference yesterday, showing a photograph to the participating journalists that showed his father walking into the hospital where he was later declared dead. “Some doctors testified that my father was already dead when he was brought to the hospital. This photograph shows my father walking. If my father was able to go there on foot, he could not have died thirty minutes prior to the shooting of this.”

A report by Turkey’s Forensic Medicine Institute (ATK) has not found any evidence that Özal was poisoned to death following a recent autopsy carried out after Turkey’s State Audit Board (DDK) ruled in a report last June that Özal’s death was “suspicious” and should be investigated.

The forensics report said there were no clinical or laboratory findings that suggested Özal had been poisoned or that there was radioactive material present in his body. “We have specimens from his hair cut off for memorial purposes. My mother has it. We will give it to the prosecutor but this will bring no results, because hair grows in a month, and it takes a month of such chemicals to penetrate hair. So that hair contains none of the poisonous chemicals, if it did we would not have exhumed my father’s body but used the hair instead.” If there is no legal case opened by May 17, 2013, the case will be barred by the statue of limitations.