Police Marked Murdered Priest as “Separatist”

Priest Andrea Santoro was killed on 5 February 2006 in Trabzon, a city on the Black Sea. It has now emerged that the police had marked him as a suspect active in “separatist activities based on the Pontus Greek idea”, i.e. reviving Greek dominance in the area.

Claims of "separatist activities"

The Trabzon police, under deputy police chief Hasan Durmusoglu had applied to the Erzurum 2nd Heavy Penal Court for permission to tap his phones on 8 November 2005, three months before his murder. The form requesting permission claimed that Santoro had moved to Trabzon in order to perpetuate separatist activities, win over people to his cause as well as financial support, and that he was in a responsible position. The Trabzon police further claimed that he was in contact with three known Pontus movement people.

The Trabzon police had also demanded permission ot listen to the mobile phone conversations of Yasin Hayal. Hayal had been involved in the bombing of a McDonald’s branch in Trabzon on 24 October 2004 and is now being tried, together with Erhan Tuncel, as an instigator to the murder of journalist Hrant Dink on 19 January 2007.

Suspected al Qaida connections 

The demand to listen in on his conversations was however not based on murder plans for Hrant Dink, but on suspected “Selefi-Wahhabi” Islamist leanings.

The police said in its application that “elements close to the al Qaida terrorist organization” had carried out “sensationalist attacks” throughout Turkey which had caused the deaths of citizens. The police argued that they knew from prevented attacks that those planning them were close to the Selefi-Wahhabi school of Islam and went abroad for political and military training before carrying out such attacks in Turkey.

Hayal previously protected by police

Ironically, the police was suddenly pursuing an investigation of Hayal, who had been taken into custody but later released in the McDonald’s bombing, which the police then said he was part of. At the same time, it is known that Hayal had been protected by the police in the case, as his bloody trousers were hidden and his file was not presented to court.

The court allowed the tapping of the phones, as well as the monitoring of a Hasan Deveci said to be a close contact of Yasin Hayal.

Akyürek not able to prevent Dink murder? 

The 16-year-old gunman who killed Santoro was found and brought to justice quickly, so the claim of Trabzon Police Chief Ramazan Akyürek. Akyürek was transferred to the Police Intelligence Department in May 2006, where he used Erhan Tuncel as a police informant.

If, as Hayal claims, Tuncel convinced him to take part in the murder, it remains to be asked why Akyürek was powerless to prevent such “sensationalist leanings”... in his own informant…(EÖ/TK/AG)