Colonel Necabettin Ergenekon (1926 – 23 October 2020) was a

Turkish Army The Turkish Land Forces ( tr, Türk Kara Kuvvetleri), or Turkish Army (Turkish: ), is the main branch of the Turkish Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. The army was formed on November 8, 1920, after the collapse of the ...

officer. He retired in 1982, having been commander of the

Turkish Gendarmerie The Gendarmerie General Command ( tr, Jandarma Genel Komutanlığı) is the national Gendarmerie force of the Republic of Turkey. It is a service branch of the Turkish Ministry of Interior responsible for the maintenance of the public order in a ...

Adıyaman Province Adıyaman Province ( tr, , ku, ) is a province in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. The capital is Adıyaman. The province is considered part of Turkish Kurdistan and has a Kurdish majority. Adıyaman Province was part of the provi ...

after the

1980 Turkish coup d'état The 1980 Turkish coup d'état ( tr, 12 Eylül Darbesi), headed by Chief of the General Staff General Kenan Evren, was the third coup d'état in the history of the Republic of Turkey, the previous having been the 1960 coup and the 1971 coup by ...

. Born in

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 ...

in 1926 as Necabettin Baltacı, he changed his name "some time in the '60s" to avoid confusion with another person by the same name. At one time, Ergenekon was the commanding officer of

Veli Küçük Veli Küçük (born 9 May 1944, Türkmen, Gölpazarı, Bilecik, TurkeyToday's Zaman, 16 June 2009Ultranationalist Ergenekon suspect is of Armenian origin, magazine reveals/ref>) is a retired Turkish brigadier-general. He is thought to be the foun ...

. Ergenekon was suspected by later-assassinated state prosecutor Cevat Yurdakul as being behind a string of mysterious deaths in the 70s, but no legal action was ever taken. With the development of public discussion about the Ergenekon organization in the 2000s, Ergenekon's name has sometimes been raised as a possible participant, possibly even responsible for its naming. Ergenekon rejects these allegations and says his name (chosen for the

Ergenekon Ergenekon (sometimes spelled ''Ergeneqon'', mn, Эргүнэ хун, Ergüne khun) is a founding myth of Turkic and Mongolic peoples.

myth) has been besmirched by traitors. Key

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 ...

witness

Tuncay Güney Tuncay Güney (; born 25 August 1972 in Kargı For details, sefolder 398of the indictment's annex.), code name "Ipek" (silk), is a Turkish citizen of Dönmeh Jewish origin who claims to have infiltrated the Turkish Gendarmerie's intelligence org ...

claims Ergenekon introduced him to

, a key defendant in the trials. Güney also alleged that Ergenekon had had discussions with

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the List of presidents of Turkey, 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Lis ...

in the 1980s. In December 2008 ''

Yeni Şafak ''Yeni Şafak'' ("New Dawn") is a conservative, Islamist Turkish daily newspaper. The newspaper is known for its hardline support of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Party and has a very close relationship with the Turkish government. ...

'' claimed that Ergenekon had led the 1995 Azeri coup d'état attempt, which had support from elements in Turkey. Ergenekon died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

on 23 October 2020, at the age of 94.

References

1926 births 2020 deaths People from Erzurum Turkish military officers {{Turkey-mil-bio-stub