Turkish PM Still Reeling From Under

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Turkish PM Still Reeling From Underworld Scandal

Turkish PM Still Reeling From Underworld Scandal 
               
ISTANBUL, Dec 3 (Reuter) - Turkey's Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan
slammed the state's alleged use of far-right gangsters in its fight
against rebels and said he was confident those involved in any such
illegal relationship would be punished. 

"You cannot have a gang within the state...Nobody can be allowed to do
anything illegal, with no exceptions," Erbakan told Turkish columnists
in an interview widely published on Tuesday. 

Erbakan was speaking in detail for the first time since a scandal over
alleged "state gangs" in the underworld erupted last month following an
accident in which a wanted gangster, Abdullah Catli, and a top policeman
died in the same car. 

A government MP, who heads Turkey's biggest private militia in its fight
with separatist rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), was also in
the car but survived with minor injuries. 

"Nothing, including fighting the PKK, can be an excuse for a crime. If
such things happen, those gangs, whatever their make-up, will be
disbanded," said Erbakan in an apparent rebuff to comments by his
deputy, Tansu Ciller, that anyone fighting for the state was a hero. 

Turkey's opposition has accused the Islamist-led ruling coalition of
attempting to cover up the scandal. 

"The state has many layers. If one tries to cover up something, another
section will bring it out into the open," Erbakan said, asked if it was
possible for such a scandal to be covered up. 

Ciller last week defended the mobster, saying "those who fire bullets or
suffer their wounds in the name of this country...will always be
respectfully remembered by us."

Ciller said she had found through enquiries that Catli had no confirmed
conviction in Turkey. Catli had been on the run for 18 years and was
wanted by Interpol for his alleged role in the 1981 attack on the Pope
and in Turkey for the murder of seven leftists 

The media has said Turkey may have ordered Catli or other right-wing
gangsters to carry out death squad killings of an Armenian guerrilla and
suspected PKK rebels, who have been fighting the army for control of
southeast Turkey since 1984. 


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