Ex-chief of General Staff signs in with police as part of conditions

ISTANBUL

Former Chief of General Staff İsmail Hakkı Karadayı (C) is provided to report to a police station once a week. DAILY NEWS Photo Selahattin Sönmez

Former Chief of General Staff İsmail Hakkı Karadayı provided his signature at a police station yesterday as a part of his court ordered judicial control conditions.

Karadayı testified in the ongoing investigation into the Feb. 28 post-modern coup trial last week and was released provided he reports to a police station once a week and refrains from travelling abroad.

Escorted by bodyguards, Karadayı arrived at the İskele police station at around 1:30 a.m. to sign documents that had been prepared earlier for him, Anatolia news agency reported.

Karadayı’s lawyer, Erol Yılmaz Aras said his client “signed the documents during the first hours of the day and then returned home.”

Like others detained in relation to the Feb. 28 probe, Karadayı was sent to court on charges of “attempting to annul the government; or attempting to block the government from performing its duties.”

The judge presiding over the case justified his decision to release Karadayı by arguing that “abstract suspicion” cannot be used as a reason for arrest, which had been the case in Karadayı’s arrest.

Karadayı was the chief of general staff during the 1997 army-led campaign that resulted in the forced resignation of the government of the time. As part of a probe launched in 2011, dozens of military officers were arrested, with a considerable number of these officers pointing the finger at Karadayı as the main responsible party.

One of them was retired Gen. Çevik Bir who was deputy chief of general staff during the Feb. 28 process and who was arrested in April 2012. Bir filed an official complaint about Karadayı in which he claimed Karadayı was well informed about the West Study Group (BÇG), a body at the center of the Feb. 28 process.