Security forces detained four people on Thursday over the 2011 death of Kaşif Kozinoğlu, an intelligence officer, while in a prison in Istanbul.
Among the suspects detained are two former prosecutors whose jurisdiction covered the prison where Kozinoğlu was held and a former inmate who shared the same prison ward with Kozinoğlu at the time of his death. Authorities also issued a detention warrant for former Col. Hasan Atilla Uğur, who also shared Kozinoğlu's ward, but Uğur remains at large; media outlets report he is currently on the island of Cyprus.
Kozinoğlu, a former soldier, was a senior figure in the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), mostly working in Central Asia, before his arrest in March 2011 as part of the notorious Ergenekon probe. Ergenekon was allegedly the name of a “deep state gang” that included influential figures, from generals to journalists. Kozinoğlu’s name came up during a search of the premises of a news website, specifically in a digital document that allegedly contained confidential information about MIT leaked to the website. Kozinoğlu was accused of leaking the information but died in prison on Nov. 12, 2011, before he had a chance to defend himself in court.
Years later, Ergenekon turned out to be part of sham trials orchestrated by judiciary and law enforcement infiltrators of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ). FETÖ stands accused of fabricating evidence in the Ergenekon case in a bid to imprison critics of the terrorist group who opposed its infiltration of public institutions. According to media outlets, Kozinoğlu had prepared his defense before his death and was expected to claim that FETÖ had targeted him through the trial.
Media outlets also reported that Enver Altaylı, another former intelligence official imprisoned for links to FETÖ, sent letters to the terrorist group’s leader, Fetullah Gülen, warning about Kozinoğlu’s rise in MIT and claiming that Kozinoğlu would take action against FETÖ in Central Asia, where the group had a large network, if he were promoted to the top office of the intelligence organization.
At the time, a probe into Kozinoğlu’s death in prison ended with a decision not to prosecute, while his cause of death was listed as a heart attack.
The Justice Ministry recently ordered a new probe into Kozinoğlu’s death as part of a drive to investigate notable cases of the past that either remained unsolved or were treated as suspicious but concluded without further prosecution. Authorities recently ordered the exhumation of Kozinoğlu’s body as part of the investigation.
Media reports say one of the prison guards, who was later found to be linked to FETÖ, deliberately delayed in intervening when Kozinoğlu pressed an emergency button in the ward after suspecting that he was having a heart attack. Kozinoğlu was taken to a hospital but was pronounced dead there. The guard is among the wanted suspects in the case, while other prison guards and officials who worked at the prison at the time of Kozinoğlu's death were detained earlier this month.
The new investigation also focuses on "Valley of Wolves," or "Kurtlar Vadisi," a popular TV show about the mafia and “deep state,” in which Kozinoğlu’s death was portrayed through a fictional character with striking similarities to the intelligence officer before his death. Prosecutors summoned screenwriters of the show to testify earlier this week, but the show’s creators claimed that it was simply a coincidence that Kozinoğlu died two days after an episode of the show in which other characters ordered the death of “Kazım Kaşifoğlu” was aired. In another episode aired a few weeks after Kozinoğlu’s death, the Kaşifoğlu character, a shady figure in the TV series, was killed by poisoning while in prison, like his real-life counterpart, and his death was covered up as a heart attack.
In a statement on Thursday, Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said that they were determined to shed light on any suspicious death “no matter how many years have passed.”
Gürlek said in a social media post that judicial proceedings were underway against four suspects and that they were investigating what happened on the night Kozinoğlu died, the course of the initial investigation and the fate of evidence collected during that investigation.
