Sarmusak blames Demirel for being tried

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Kadir Sarmusak, who was accused of leaking documents of the Naval Forces Command’s “West Study Group - BÇG” to the Police Intelligence Department during the Feb. 28 process, appeared in front of Parliament’s Coups and Military Memorandums’ Commission yesterday.

Sarmusak was a corporal with a police background in the Naval Forces during the run-up to the Feb. 28 process. Sarmusak was at the time accused of leaking the works of the BÇG, a group formed within the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in order to fight fundamentalists, to the Interior Ministry and he was tried on charges of espionage, but was eventually acquitted. His appearance at the commission was closed to the press upon his own request. “Demirel blew the whistle on me and I was tortured. They threw a hood over my head. My testimony was taken by the use of force,” Sarmusak was quoted by anonymous sources as telling the commission. According to sources, he put the blame on former President Süleyman Demirel for his being tried. People who do not have sufficient information have been manipulated by social engineers and these people have been leading the spread of misinformation among society, he told the commission, according to a source.

Sarmusak also argued that one cannot understand the alleged Ergenekon gang, which is accused of trying to topple the government in 2003 and 2004, without understanding the Feb. 28 process. He suggested that the BÇG was established upon an order by the commander of the Naval Forces, the late Güven Erkaya. Sarmusak stated that soldiers had power on Aczimendis (a fundamentalist religious group) and said, “The military was conducting protests against the headscarf ban.” The Feb. 28 process refers to the harsh army-led campaign that forced Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister, the late Necmettin Erbakan, to resign in June 1997.