Arrested general hospitalized

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

Ret. Brig. Gen. Levent Ersöz, a suspect in the ongoing Ergenekon probe, was rushed off to the emergency unit of Istanbul University’s Çapa Medical Faculty Hospital yesterday, after his health condition began to deteriorate.

“My client cannot walk or get up on his feet, and constantly needs somebody else’s help to relieve his needs. His blood pressure keeps rising and falling suddenly. He could die at any moment,” his lawyer, Murat Nebi Ayhan, said.

Ayhan added that they were going to appeal to President Abdullah Gül for an amnesty to be issued, as well as to the Constitutional Court, because Ersöz is afflicted with a series of lethal diseases.

The former general is under trial in the “Balyoz” (“Sledgehammer”) case without having been charged. He will not be able to plead in the “Balyoz” trials either, as he remains unconscious, his lawyer said.

Meanwhile, the Justice Ministry also issued a two day permit for Ret. Col. Dursun Çiçek, a suspect arrested pending trial in the investigation into the “Action Plan to Combat Reactionism,” to attend his mother’s funeral.

Çiçek’s 82 year old mother Halime Çiçek passed away in the district of Reşadiye in the central province of Tokat, on the afternoon of March 15.