{"id":16423,"date":"2023-08-24T11:57:49","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T07:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/news\/16423\/"},"modified":"2023-12-17T12:44:05","modified_gmt":"2023-12-17T08:44:05","slug":"thurkhiayi-gsh-petn-unecel-e-gaghtni-jokat-ori-thiraxum-eghel-en-naev-hayer%e2%80%a4-nordic-monitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/news\/16423\/","title":{"rendered":"Nordic Monitor: Turkey\u2019s chief of general staff set up a secret hit team for targeting minorities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Metin Gürak, recently appointed Turkey’s chief
\nof general staff, has been accused of forming an assassination squad to carry
\nout attacks and murders targeting minority groups, especially non-Muslims, all
\nunder the guise of counterterrorism efforts.

<\/p><\/span><\/p>\n

Reviewing hundreds of legal documents, NordicMonitor<\/a> produced Evidence shedding light on the existence of this covert squad.<\/span><\/p>\n

These documents reveal a disturbing picture
\nof Turkey’s top commander, who is alleged to have exceeded his mandate and
\nviolated laws.

<\/p><\/span><\/p>\n

A shocking disclosure regarding Gürak’s
\ncovert hit squad was brought to light by İbrahim Şahin, the former deputy chief
\nof the police department special operations unit. Şahin is a notorious figure
\nwho was convicted of involvement in extrajudicial killings in the late 1990s.

<\/p><\/span><\/p>\n

Arrested in January 2009, Şahin provided a
\ncomprehensive account of his interactions with Gürak to the court, revealing
\nhow he was secretly meeting with Gürak when the general was head of the General
\nStaff communications department.

<\/p><\/span><\/p>\n

During that period, Gürak was engaged in
\nthe establishment of numerous disinformation websites in Turkey, primarily
\nfocused on conducting negative campaigns against the United States, the
\nEuropean Union and the Jewish and Christian communities.

<\/p><\/span><\/p>\n

In his testimony, Şahin revealed that Gürak
\nhad instructed him to assemble a select group of 150 to 300 individuals.This
\nteam’s intended purpose was to operate as a clandestine death squad,
\nresponsible for carrying out assassinations, bombings and other violent attacks.

<\/p><\/span><\/p>\n

The intended targets of this operation
\nincluded individuals from minority non-Muslim communities and others perceived
\nas threats within Turkey. Şahin disclosed that he was on the verge of executing
\noperations against Armenians under orders from the General Staff had he not
\nbeen apprehended by the police.

<\/p><\/span><\/p>\n

Şahin further revealed that he had
\nmaintained consistent communication with Gen. Gürak, keeping him apprised of
\ndevelopments within the squad. Gürak had instructed him to recruit individuals
\nexclusively of a Turkish ethnic background for a group tasked with “domestic
\ncleansing” operations within Turkey.

<\/p><\/span><\/p>\n

Court-authorized wiretaps revealed that
\nŞahin was involved in more plots than he had initially admitted to in his
\nstatement to the prosecutor. For instance, in a phone conversation with Fatma
\nCengiz, also a suspect in the same case, on December 1, 2008, Şahin mentioned
\nthe presence of 580 Jews, Armenians and expressed his interest in obtaining
\nsuch a list.

<\/p><\/span><\/p>\n\n

Among the documents seized from Şahin’s
\napartments in Istanbul and Ankara were intricate assassination plots targeting
\nprominent figures, including the then-Armenian Patriarch Mesrob Mutafyan and
\nthe leader of Sivas’ Armenian community, Minas Durmaz Güler.

<\/p><\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Metin Gürak, recently appointed Turkey’s chief of general staff, has been accused of forming an assassination squad to carry out attacks and murders targeting minority groups, especially non-Muslims, all under the guise of counterterrorism efforts. Reviewing hundreds of legal documents, NordicMonitor produced Evidence shedding light on the existence of this covert squad. These documents reveal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,35,43,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-world","category-region"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}