A court on Feb. 9 postponed the trial over the 1993 assassination of investigative journalist Uğur Mumcu to July 14, as the legal battle to identify those behind the bombing remains unresolved.
The hearing in Ankara was attended by Mumcu’s daughter, Özge Mumcu, along with their legal team and senior main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) lawmaker Gökhan Günaydın.
During the session, the plaintiff’s lawyer requested an investigation into the status of a vehicle registered to Oğuz Demir, the suspect accused of planting the bomb under Mumcu’s car. The lawyer said there were suspicions that Demir had fled to Australia and asked the court to seek information from the Foreign Ministry, police and intelligence authorities. The court accepted the request.
Mumcu, a prominent researcher and writer, was killed on Jan. 24, 1993, when a bomb planted under his car exploded outside his home in Ankara.
The assassination triggered one of the largest investigations in the country’s history, though the masterminds remain unknown. The case is currently tied to a broader class-action lawsuit involving 22 unsolved killings.
Evidence in the case surfaced significantly in 2000 following a police raid on a Hezbollah-affiliated house in Istanbul. Prosecutors have alleged that the murders were carried out by individuals linked to radical Islamist organizations, reportedly with assistance from Iranian intelligence.
Though several defendants were sentenced to prison in 2014, the case against Demir remains open. He has been a fugitive since escaping a police operation in 2000 and is currently on the Interior Ministry’s most-wanted list.
Mehmet Ağar — a former police chief who also served as interior and justice minister — testified as a witness for the first time during a hearing on Sept. 22.
