Prosecutors investigating Özal’s death accuse former general of complicity in murder

ISTANBUL – Doğan News Agency

Turgut Özal died of heart failure on April 17, 1993.

Prosecutors investigating the death of former Turkish President Turgut Özal have interrogated former General Levent Ersöz, on the grounds that he was complicit in murder, Doğan news agency reported April 2. Ersöz, who is also a suspect in the Ergenekon coup plot case, was interrogated for three hours, during which he denied all accusations.

In an autopsy last December, Turkey’s Forensic Medicine Institute (ATK) did not find any evidence that Özal was poisoned, however the Ankara Chief Prosecution Office said the investigation would resume with the help of other findings.

Ersöz was summoned “as a suspect of a plot against a president in office and murder,” the revealed details of the interrogation show.

“Considering  the discrepancies between the developments leading to the death of the late president and the testimonies on the basic facts, there are strong suspicions that [Özal] was the victim of an organized murder,” the details continued.

Özal died of heart failure in 1993 aged 65, at a time when he was engaged in efforts to end the Kurdish insurgency through dialogue. There have long been rumors that this initiative angered militants of the “deep state” within the Turkish establishment of the day, and he may have been poisoned as a result.