Former Ülkü Ocakları Chairman Sinan Ateş lost his life in an armed attack in Ankara on December 30th. Ateş’s friend Selman Bozkurt, who was with him during the attack, was injured. The Ankara Governor’s Office announced that three people were detained in connection with the murder. Latest news indicates that the number of people detained is increasing and these people have connections with the Istanbul-Gülsuyu murder case from last year. The Ülkü Ocakları, also known as Grey Wolves in English, is a far-right nationalist organization with connections to Turkey’s Nationalist Action Party (MHP).
Following the murder of former Ülkü Ocakları Chairman Sinan Ateş, a suspect was taken into custody. This suspect, however, whose motorcycle was found to resemble the vehicle used by the people who committed the murder, was later released. One day after the murder, the Ankara Governor’s Office announced that “three persons, including one person who is considered to be one of the perpetrators of the murder, and two persons involved in the incident” had been taken into custody.
It has been alleged that some of the detainees are among the defendants from the Hasan Ferit Gedil murder case of 2013. Gedik was killed in İstanbul’s Maltepe district during an anti-drug march in September of 2013. Yavuz Selim Demirağ, a journalist who covered the murder said: “There is a team that went to the Turkmen Mountain for a while and then ganged up in Istanbul-Maltepe-Gülsuyu.”
Demirağ said that the team that committed the murder had planned to return to Istanbul by first regrouping in Ankara’s Gölbaşı district. However ‘E.Ö.’, the suspect stated to be the shooter, reportedly did not return to Gölbaşı and is now on the run. In addition to E.Ö., a suspect referred to as ‘M.Y.’ is also being sought by authorities.
Journalist Alican Uludağ of Deutsche Welle’s Turkish channel stated that five people have been detained in connection with the murder so far. It is believed that there were two attackers on motorcycles at the scene. Allegedly, the shooter was E.Ö. and the person driving the vehicle was D.Ç.
D.Ç was a suspect from 2013’s Hasan Ferit Gedik murder case. He was released in 2015 “taking into account the nature of the crime charged against them, the state of evidence, and the period of their detention”. The case concluded in 2018 when D.Ç. was sentenced to 35 years and 4 months in prison for “deliberate killing” and an arrest warrant was issued. However, D.Ç. was never detained and has been on the run ever since.
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According to the information Uludağ obtained, the former Ülkü Ocakları Maltepe Branch Manager U.K. was also detained. Following the detention, U.K.’s name was removed from the list of MHP Istanbul Provincial Board of Directors. A gun, 2 magazines and 23 cartridges were seized from the house belonging to this suspect.
Murder in Maltepe last year
Uğur Köroğlu, another person who was arrested after the murder of Hasan Ferit Gedik, was killed in May 2021. Köroğlu, who was released shortly after being arrested in the 2013 case, was killed in a fight in Maltepe’s Başıbüyük neighborhood due to a conflict stemming from a “land dispute”. MHP’s Maltepe District office also issued a condolence message for Köroğlu, praising him as “Sedat Peker’s man” as well as a veteran of fighting on Turkmen Mountain in Syria. Sedat Peker is a famous Turkish mob boss whose allegations of corruption at the highest levels of Turkish government made headlines throughout 2021. Turkmen Mountain refers to a mountain range in Northern Syria bordering the Turkish province of Hatay, which has been the site of conflict throughout the Syrian Civil War as it was home to one of Syria’s largest ethnic Turkmen communities.
The original of the article appeared on January 2, 2023 on https://medyascope.tv/2023/01/02/sinan-ates-suikasti-gozaltina-alinanlar-hakkinda-su-ana-kadar-bilinenler-ve-istanbul-baglantisi/. Edited for Medyascope English by Leo Kendrick.
