Ayhan Çarkın
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Ayhan Çarkın (born 1962,
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 ...
) is a Turkish policeman who is reported to have played a controversial role in 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 ...
. The leader of the Special Operations Department ( tr, Özel Harekât Dairesi), İbrahim Şahin, said Çarkın was the most fearless policeman he had ever met.


Biography

Çarkın grew up in Erzincan. He came from an underprivileged family that was unable to fund his high school education; he dropped out. The year after 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) was established (1984), he signed up to the
police force The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...
. He received training in
special warfare Special forces and special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...
from
Korkut Eken Korkut Eken (born 1945) is a former Turkish military officer and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) agent. He became involved in the Susurluk scandal in Turkey after some of his subordinates, notably Ayhan Çarkın, were convicted of extraju ...
. He was deployed in
Diyarbakır Diyarbakır (; ; ; ) is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, ...
under chief Şahin, who described Çarkın as his best man. He gained a reputation for conducting lightning-fast raids—350 in all—though some have suggested the possibility that some of his victims might have been innocent. He was active in southeast Turkey from 1986 to 1990. Later, Şahin took Çarkın to Istanbul to target Dev-Sol militants. He led a raid on 12 July 1991 in which eleven were killed. Relatives of the victims took the state to the
European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...
, and won the case. Çarkın's next raid was on 16 April 1992; three were killed. Twenty people including Çarkın were sued; this time he was acquitted. Another was the "Perpa" raid on 13 August 1993 in which Selma Çıtlak, Mehmet Salgın, Sabri Atılmış, Hakan Kasa, and Mehmet Akyürek were killed. Five of the eight participating policemen were initially sentenced to death, but this was reduced to three years and ten months in prison. They were all acquitted by the
Supreme Court of Appeals The Supreme Court of Virginia is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It primarily hears direct appeals in civil cases from the trial-level city and county circuit courts, as well as the criminal law, family law and administrative ...
.


Susurluk scandal

Çarkın was involved in the events that led to the scandal. Specifically, he was part of the elite
Police Special Operation Teams The Police Special Operations Department ( tr, Polis Özel Harekât Dairesi) or Police Special ActionJoost Jongerden, ''The Settlement Issue in Turkey and the Kurds: An Analysis of Spatial Policies, Modernity and War'', Brill, 2007p. 70./ref> ( ...
department ( tr, Özel Tim) that was responsible for assassinating businessmen suspected of financially supporting the PKK. One of these was allegedly the so-called "casino king", Ömer Lütfü Topal, assassinated in July 1996. Çarkın's associates included Ayhan Akça, Oğuz Yorulmaz, Ercan Ersoy, and the notorious
Abdullah Çatlı Abdullah Çatlı (1 June 1956 – 3 November 1996) was a Turkish secret government agent, as well as a contract killer for the National Intelligence Organization (MİT). He led the Grey Wolves, the youth branch of the Nationalist Movement Party ...
. Three (excluding Çatlı) were detained, but released on the orders of the chief of police,
Mehmet Ağar Mehmet Kemal Ağar (born on 30 October 1951) is a Turkish former police chief, politician, government minister and leader of the Democratic Party. He was a police officer who rose to General Director of the General Directorate of Security (effect ...
, and transferred to become bodyguards for another key figure in the scandal,
Sedat Bucak Sedat Edip Bucak (born 31 October 1960 in Siverek) is a Zaza politician and the leader of the Bucak tribe in Siverek, Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey. In the 1990s, he was a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. He survived the 1996 Sus ...
. Bucak was a
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 ...
deputy as well as the leader of a 20–30,000-strong armed clan. Significantly, he was the only survivor of the November 1996 Susurluk car crash (in which Çatlı died), thanks to his bodyguards. Since the assassinations were extrajudicial (the public did not know that the state had sanctioned them), Çarkın was tried again. He was sentenced to four years in jail; he served twenty months. Çarkın denies having taken part in the Topal assassination. He says he has alibis; he was leading a unit of five in
Kadıköy Kadıköy (), known in classical antiquity and during the Roman and Byzantine eras as Chalcedon ( gr, Χαλκηδών), is a large, populous, and cosmopolitan district in the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkey, on the northern shore of the Sea of ...
at the moment the assassination took place. After the scandal, the Çiller- Erbakan administration was replaced by the
Mesut Yılmaz Ahmet Mesut Yılmaz () (6 November 1947 – 30 October 2020) was a Turkish politician. He was the leader of the Motherland Party ( tr, Anavatan Partisi, ANAP) from 1991 to 2002, and served three times as Prime Minister of Turkey. His first two p ...
administration. Çarkın alleges that deputies in the Yılmaz administration offered him a passport to enable him to flee, but he refused since he believed he was innocent. Çarkın became disillusioned and spoke out. He alleges that the state, using the clandestine
Ergenekon network Ergenekon () was the name given to an alleged clandestine, secular ultra-nationalist organization in Turkey with possible ties to members of the country's military and security forces. The would-be group, named after Ergenekon, a mythical pla ...
, colluded with militant groups such as the PKK, Dev-Sol, and
Hezbollah Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's parami ...
, with the goal of profiting from the war.


Smuggling ring

In January 2011, Turkish police announced that after a nine-month investigation they had uncovered a smuggling and bribery ring operating 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, ...
that dealt mostly with smuggling cigarettes. Ayhan Çarkın was alleged to be involved in the scheme, along with others suspected of involvement in the Susurluk scandal.Police report burns Turkey's customs house chief
/ref>


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carkin, Ayhan Turkish people convicted of murder Susurluk scandal 1962 births Living people People from Erzurum Turkish police officers