Ahmet Hurşit Tolon (born 3 August 1942) is a retired Turkish general; he was Commander of the First Army of Turkey from 2004 to 2005. In August 2013 he was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment as part of the

Ergenekon trials The Ergenekon trials were a series of high-profile trials which took place on 2008–2016 in Turkey in which 275 people, including military officers, journalists and opposition lawmakers, all alleged members of Ergenekon, a suspected secularist ...

. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1989. As a brigadier-general he was Chief of General Staff General Secretariat and Commander 28 Motorised Infantry Brigade. In 1993 he was promoted to the rank of Major General. Chief of General Staff General Secretariat in this rank, he served as Vice Commander of the Gendarmerie Public Order Corps Commander and Deputy Commander 7th Corps. In 1997, he was promoted to lieutenant general. He was Commander 15th Corps and General Staff Logistics President while at this rank. Tolon is accused of establishing the ''National Strategies and Operations Department of Turkey'' (

TUSHAD TUSHAD ( tr, Türkiye Ulusal Stratejiler ve Harekât Dairesi, TUSHAD; en, National Strategies and Operations Department of Turkey) was a clandestine organization within the Turkish Armed Forces, including within the General Staff of Turkey. Prose ...

) in 1993 on instructions from Ergenekon, while Tolon was serving as secretary-general of the General Staff of Turkey. Prosecutors allege that TUSHAD carried out the Zirve Publishing House massacre in 2007. TUSHAD is also said to have worked with the Turkish Gendarmerie's

JİTEM Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele or Jandarma İstihbarat Teşkilatı (abbr. ''JİTEM'' or ''JİT''; English: "Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism" or "Gendarmerie Intelligence Organization") is the unofficial and illegal intel ...

intelligence unit. The Zirve murders are claimed to be part of the "Cage Action Plan", which is being prosecuted in the Poyrazköy case of the Ergenekon trials.

Today's Zaman ''Today's Zaman'' (Zaman is Turkish for 'time' or 'age') was an English-language daily newspaper based in Turkey. Established on 17 January 2007, it was the English-language edition of the Turkish daily '' Zaman.'' ''Today's Zaman'' included dom ...

, 24 June 2012
Clandestine military unit behind Zirve killings, indictment says
/ref> Tolon is said to have attended meetings of

Semih Tufan Gülaltay Semih Tufan Gülaltay (born 1968, in Kars) is the founder of the militant Turkish Revenge Brigade, and the National Unity Party ( tr, Ulusal Birlik Partisi). He was sentenced to nineteen years in prison for the attempted killing in 1998 of Human ...

National Unity Party The National Unity Party, National United Party, Party of National Unity or National Unity Front may refer to: * National United Party of Afghanistan (founded 2003) * National Unity Party (Albania) * National United Party (Armenia), defunct * Natio ...

. Tolon graduated from the Turkish Military Academy in 1962 and the

Kara Harp Akademisi The Army War Institute ( tr, Kara Harp Enstitüsü), formerly Army War Academy ( tr, Kara Harp Akademisi), is an academic institution of the National Defence University. It is sometimes referred to in English as the ''Turkish Military College''. ...

in 1978.

References

1942 births Military personnel from Istanbul Turkish Army generals Living people Turkish Military Academy alumni People convicted in the Ergenekon trials Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Turkey {{Turkey-mil-bio-stub