Two men who were witnesses in the Malatya murder trial have now become suspects themselves. First, Varol Bülent Aral was arrested, accused of inciting murder suspect Emre Günaydin.

Now Hüseyin Yelki, a former employee at the publishing house where the murders took place, has been arrested under the same charges.

The next hearing of the case is at the Malatya 3rd Heavy Penal Court on 20 February.

On 18 April 2007, three men, one of them of German origin, were brutally murdered at the Zirve publishing house in Malatya: Tilman Ekkehart Geske, Necati Aydın and Uğur Yüksel.

More connections will emerge

Five young men are being tried in detention, accused of forming an armed gang and committing murder: Emre Günaydın, Salih Gürler, Cuma Özdemir, Hamit Çeker and Abuzer Yıldırım.

The two recent arrests could mean serious progress in the case, joint attorney Orhan Kemal Cengiz told bianet: “If someone who used to work in the publishing house has been arrested for incitement to murder, then this shows that the murders were prepared in a calculated and sophisticated manner. It gives us clues about the relationships lying behind the murders.”

He added, “This means more than just the addition of two suspects. We can now find out who they had relations with.”

"The murders were planned"

At the arrest of Aral, Izmir Bar Association lawyer Özkan Yücel had said: “We have always argued that these were not murders that five young men decided to commit one morning after they got up, but that they were incited to commit them by others, and that they were protected by the state, or at least told that this was the case. This is a step. There are other people connected to Aral. We believe that this case will develop into the direction of the Ergenekon case.”

The Malatya court is already considering the indictment of the Ergenekon case as evidence in its own investigations. Furthermore, suspects have been asked about relations to suspects in the Ergenekon trial.

There is a widespread belief that several murders in the last years, among them that of journalist Hrant Dink, priest Andrea Santoro and the three Christian men in Malatya, were camouflaged as hate crimes carried out by young nationalist individuals, but that they were in fact orchestrated in a calculated manner by “deep state” powers. (EÖ/AG)