Journalist Tuncay Özkan, former owner of the TV channel Kanaltürk, was taken into custody this morning (September 23) in connection with the Ergenekon investigation.

Moreover, former Esenyurt Mayor Gürbüz Çapan and three more people were also taken into custody for the Ergenekon investigation.

Among the sixteen people taken into custody in operations in Ankara, İstanbul and İzmir are Duygu Dikmenoğlu, one of the founders of Kanaltürk, Adnan Akbulut, journalist and former news director of Kanaltürk, Evrim Baykara from the movement of How Many People We Are, Tanju Güvendiren, former military prosecutor retired colonel, and a police officer on duty at the Supreme Court of Appeals and Tuncay Özkan’s doctor.

He called Mengü from the Republican People’s Party (CHP)

Şahin Mengü, Manisa deputy for the CHP, said Özkan had called him this morning around 6:45 to tell him that he was being taken into custody for the Ergenekon investigation and hung the telephone.

Mengü pointed out to Özkan’s health problems, especially the one related to his cholesterol level.

Last week seventeen people, among them five lieutenant and one military students, were taken into custody for the Ergenekon case and eleven of them were arrested. 

Who is Tuncay Özkan

Özkan started journalism in 1981. He first worked at the newspapers Hürriyet and Cumhuriyet.

In 1993, he went to the field of television. He managed the Kanal D News Center.

He was a columnist for the newspaper Radikal between June 1998 and February 2001 and for the newspaper Milliyet between February 2001 and July 2002.

Former owner of KanalTürk TV channel, Tuncay Özkan sold his channel to owner of Koza Mining A.Ş. Akın İpek for 25 million US dollars.

He was one of the organizers of the Republic Meetings against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). On September 12, 2007, he called out to one million people to unite against the AKP.

Staring the movement of How Many People We Are, Özkan formed the platform for this movement. (BÇ/TB)