My father may have been killed by Gülenists, says son of former Turkish president

Former President Turgut Özal’s body was exhumed in November 2012 over suspicions that he was poisoned and the head of the Forensic Medicine Institute said no indication of the lethal chemical “strychnine creatine” was found in his body.  

“I have suspicions that my father was poisoned by FETÖ and I think it should be deeply investigated,” Ahmet Özal, the former president’s son, told Anadolu Agency on Aug. 9, adding that his father had said that “Gülen was a dangerous man at the time.” 

During his interview, Özal claimed that the people working in the technical branch of the institute were threatened, adding that the efforts taken when his father died were “covered up.”

“We know that there were two doctors and two ambulances in the Presidential Guard Regiment when my father fell ill, but they didn’t arrive even though they were 50 meters away. None of this was investigated and it was covered up. There was confusion. He was declared poisoned mistakenly at first, but then there was silence. We never could figure it out,” he said. 

Saying that several incidents that took place in 1993, which he described as a “significant year,” were connected, Özal noted that the deaths of journalists Uğur Mumcu, who was killed in a car bomb attack, and Ahmet Taner Kışlalı and the death of Gen. Eşref Bitlis, who died in a plane crash, were linked, as well as the Sivas Massacre, an arson attack on mostly Alevi intellectuals inside the city’s Madımak Hotel staged by radical Islamists that killed 33 intellectuals and two hotel personnel. 

“I think all of the incidents that happened in 1993 should be reexamined and the personnel working in the Forensic Medicine Institute at the time should be investigated,” he said.