Mehmet Kemal Ağar (born on 30 October 1951) is a Turkish former police chief,

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

, government minister and leader of the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

. He was a police officer who rose to

General Director A director general or director-general (plural: ''directors general'', ''directors-general'', ''director generals'' or ''director-generals'' ) or general director is a senior executive officer, often the chief executive officer, within a government ...

of the General Directorate of Security (effectively national police chief), serving from 1993 to 1995, before entering parliament and serving as a government minister in 1996. After being sentenced to several years in prison for criminal activities relating to the

Susurluk scandal The Susurluk scandal () was a scandal involving the close relationship among the deep state in Turkey, the Grey Wolves and the Turkish mafia. It took place during the peak of the Kurdish–Turkish conflict, in the mid-1990s. The relationshi ...

, he was released on probation in April 2013.

Background and personal life

Mehmet Ağar was born on October 30, 1951, at the state president's official residence

Çankaya Köşkü Çankaya may refer to: * Çankaya, Ankara (neighbourhood), a neighbourhood in Ankara, Turkey * Çankaya, Ankara (district), a district of Ankara, Turkey, which includes the Çankaya neighbourhood * Çankaya, İzmir, a neighbourhood in Konak dist ...

in Ankara, where his father was serving as security. During his youth, he toured several places across the country due to his father's position as police chief. He began his high school education in Ankara, continued in

Haydarpaşa Haydarpaşa is a neighborhood within the Kadıköy and Üsküdar districts on the Asian part of Istanbul, Turkey. Haydarpaşa is named after Ottoman Vizier Haydar Pasha. The place, on the coast of Sea of Marmara, borders to Harem in the northwes ...

High School in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

finishing in 1968. He studied finance in the School of Political Science at the

University of Ankara Ankara University ( tr, Ankara Üniversitesi) is a public university in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. It was the first higher education institution founded in Turkey after the formation of the republic in 1923. The university has 40 vocat ...

on scholarship from the Turkish General Directorate of Security. Graduated in 1972, Mehmet Ağar became a police officer. Mehmet Ağar, married in 1974 Emel Ağar. The couple has a son Tolga and a daughter Yasemin.

Career

He later served as a police inspector in the security force for the state president. In 1976, Ağar was appointed vice district governor in

İznik İznik is a town and an administrative district in the Province of Bursa, Turkey. It was historically known as Nicaea ( el, Νίκαια, ''Níkaia''), from which its modern name also derives. The town lies in a fertile basin at the eastern end ...

and Selçuk. He later became district governor in

Torul Torul is a town and district of Gümüşhane Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on th ...

and

Delice Delice is a town and district of Kırıkkale Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located ma ...

. In 1980, he was assigned assistant director to the

counter-terrorism Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, business, and intelligence agencies use to combat or el ...

section of Istanbul Police. The next year, he was promoted to director of security in Istanbul. At the same time, he became chief of the

Counter-Guerrilla Counter-Guerrilla ( tr, Kontrgerilla) is the Turkish branch of Operation Gladio, a clandestine stay-behind anti-communist initiative backed by the United States as an expression of the Truman Doctrine. The founding goal of the operation was to ere ...

, a clandestine

stay-behind In a stay-behind operation, a country places secret operatives or organizations in its own territory, for use in case an enemy occupies that territory. If this occurs, the operatives would then form the basis of a resistance movement or act as sp ...

anti-communist Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, w ...

initiative backed by

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

and the United States. Mehmet Ağar served between 1984 and 1988 as the vice police chief of Istanbul for the General Directorate of Security (Turkish National Police). Ağar featured in

Mehmet Eymür Mehmet Eymür (born 1943 in Istanbul) is a retired Turkish intelligence official. In 1995-6 he led the counter-terrorism department of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), which he joined as a student in 1965 as a "pursuit officer" ( tr, ...

's controversial ''1987

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

Report'' that targeted former high ranking civil servants and politicians such as Ağar,

Nevzat Ayaz Nevzat Ayaz (born 1930, Çankırı) is a former Turkish civil servant and True Path Party politician. He was governor of Istanbul Province from 1979 to 1988. He was elected to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in 1991, and was Minister of Defe ...

and

Ünal Erkan Ünal Erkan (born 1942 in Erzurum) is a Nationalist Movement Party politician. He was at one time a member of the party's Central Executive Board, resigning in 2007. He was governor of the OHAL state-of-emergency region from 1992 to 1995, and had p ...

. In 1988, he became police chief of Ankara and in 1990

Istanbul Chief of Police The Istanbul Chief of Police ( tr, İstanbul Emniyet Müdürleri) is the head of the General Directorate of Security (Turkish National Police) of the Istanbul Province.İstanbul Emniyet Müdürleri, iem.gov.trEmniyet Müdürlerimiz{{Webarchive, url ...

. Following a brief service as governor of the police province of

Erzurum Erzurum (; ) is a city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. The city uses the double-headed eagle as ...

between 1992 and 1993, he was appointed in July 1993 director general of the General Directorate of Security - in effect the national police chief. Under his leadership the Police Special Forces ('' Özel Harekat Dairesi'') within the General Directorate of Security was run by İbrahim Şahin; Ağar supported its co-operation with the

Gendarmerie Wrong info! --> A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (literally, ...

against the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of south ...

PKK in rural areas. He resigned from the police after entering parliament in 1995.

Political career

Mehmet Ağar entered politics as deputy of

Elazığ Elazığ () is a city in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey, and the administrative centre of Elazığ Province and Elazığ District. It is located in the uppermost Euphrates valley. The plain on which the city extends has an altitude of . ...

from the

True Path Party The True Path Party ( tr, Doğru Yol Partisi, DYP) was a centre-right political party in Turkey, active from 1983 to 2007. For most of its history, the party's central figure was Süleyman Demirel, a former Prime Minister of Turkey who previously ...

(DYP) following the general elections 1995. Mehmet Ağar was appointed the Minister of Justice in 1996. He served later in the next government's coalition cabinet as the Minister of the Interior. He resigned from this post on November 8, 1996, protesting Prime Minister

Necmettin Erbakan Necmettin Erbakan (29 October 1926 – 27 February 2011) was a Turkish politician, engineer, and academic who was the Prime Minister of Turkey from 1996 to 1997. He was pressured by the military to step down as prime minister and was later ban ...

's official visit to

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...

. At the 1999 general elections, Ağar run for a seat in the parliament as independent deputy from Elazığ, and received the highest number of votes an independent candidate ever achieved. The True Path Party (DYP) lost the 2002 parliamentary elections and

Tansu Çiller Tansu Çiller (; born 24 May 1946) is a Turkish academic, economist and politician who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Turkey from 1993 to 1996. She is Turkey's first and only female prime minister to date. As the leader of the True Path P ...

resigned as leader of the party and retired from politics. Mehmet Ağar was the only representative of the party elected in the 2002 election from Elazığ and entered the

Turkish Grand National Assembly The Grand National Assembly of Turkey ( tr, ), usually referred to simply as the TBMM or Parliament ( tr, or ''Parlamento''), is the unicameral Turkish legislature. It is the sole body given the legislative prerogatives by the Turkish Const ...

. After Çiller's resignation, Ağar was elected as the new president of the True Path Party. On May 5, 2007, it was announced that DYP and the Motherland Party (ANAP) would merge to form the

(Demokrat Parti). For that occasion, DYP renamed itself (based on the previous party of the same name), and it was planned that ANAP would join the newly founded DP. Mehmet Agar resigned from his position as the leader of DP following the 22 July 2007 election.

Susurluk scandal

With the Susurluk scandal of 1996, his political career ended for some time when it turned out he had stayed in a hotel with the victims of the Susurluk car crash immediately before the incident. He famously said "I will talk if the

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

wants me to" to a commission investigating the affair. He escaped justice at the time due to his parliamentary immunity, however, he was retried starting on February 9, 2009, at the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court. The Susurluk report contained the following information: *On 19 October 1984, when he was İstanbul Deputy Chief of Police, he held a meeting with ultra-nationalist activist

Celal Adan Celal Adan (born 10 September 1951 in Ağrı) is a Turkish politician. He was elected in 2011 to the 24th Grand National Assembly of Turkey for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Adan had previously represented the True Path Party (DYP) in th ...

. *On 3 July 3, 1985, while serving as Public Order Branch Director at İstanbul Police HQ, he contacted owners of a company, İbrahim Aslan and Mahmut Şahin, who were followers of the Süleymancı sect, and gave them the files and other information about the investigation carried out against members of the Süleymancı sect, which should have been kept secret. *On September 4, 1986, ultra-nationalist activist Selim Kaptanoğlu declared that "they had been engaged in collecting of checks and vouchers; they had collected money from the Mafia bosses in the name of Alparslan Türkeş; they had given part of this money to Alpaslan Türkeş and another part to the ultra-nationalist activists in the prisons; and while doing this they had been in close contact to the Deputy Chief of Police, Mehmet Ağar." *It was determined that on December 5, 1990, he took a bribe from Kemal Kaçar of the Süleymancı sect. *He pushed for ultra-nationalists candidates to be chosen to the Police Academy in the examinations of the academy held on September 29, 1993. *He was elected Member of the Parliament from

for

(DYP) in the

general elections A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

held on December 24, 1995. *Ağar was assigned the post of Minister of Justice in the cabinet of the 53rd Government, the coalition government of Motherland Party (ANAP) and DYP in 1996. He became Minister of the Interior in the 54th Government, the coalition government of

Welfare Party The Welfare Party ( tr, Refah Partisi, RP) was an Islamist political party in Turkey. It was founded by Ali Türkmen, Ahmet Tekdal, and Necmettin Erbakan in Ankara in 1983 as heir to two earlier parties, National Order Party (MNP) and Nationa ...

(RP) and DYP formed in the same year; and he resigned on November 8, 1996.

Trial

On September 15, 2011, he was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in the Susurluk scandal as the leader of a criminal organization. Following the High Court of Appeals's approval of the ruling made by the criminal court in Ankara, he was interned on April 25, 2012, in a small district prison of type K1 in

Yenipazar, Aydın Yenipazar ( Turkish for "new market") is a municipality and district of Aydın Province, Turkey. Its area is 245 km2, and its population is 11,863 (2022). It is from the city of Aydın on the road to Denizli. Yenipazar itself is a quiet r ...

, which was chosen for his personal security reasons. After his sentence was reduced to three years and nine months, he was released on probation in April 2013.

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 ...

, 29 April 2013
Former minister and Susurluk convict Mehmet Ağar released on probation

Books

* Sefa Kaplan (2007), ''Mehmet Ağar: Geleceği etkileyecek liderler'', Doğan Kitapçılık

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Agar, Mehmet 1951 births Living people People from Ankara Democrat Party (Turkey, current) politicians Ministers of the Interior of Turkey Ministers of Justice of Turkey Turkish police chiefs Turkish civil servants Leaders of political parties in Turkey Susurluk scandal Haydarpaşa High School alumni Ankara University Faculty of Political Sciences alumni Turkish prisoners and detainees Deputies of Elazığ Members of the 22nd Parliament of Turkey Members of the 21st Parliament of Turkey Members of the 20th Parliament of Turkey Members of the 53rd government of Turkey Members of the 54th government of Turkey