An investigation has been launched into the use of secret funds by retired General Şener Eruygur, defendant of the Ergenekon case. Executives of four companies who supposedly received payments from Eruygur have been arrested.

The investigation was launched by the prosecution upon a report of the Prime Ministry Review Committee from 4 December 2009. It is concerned with money from secret funds allocated to the Gendarmerie General Command (JGK). Apparently, TL 13,000,000 (approx. € 6,000,000) were transferred to Eruygun's account and from there TL 7,000,000 (€ 3,180,000) were forwarded to the accounts of five different people.

Four military officers testified

Retired Lieutenant General Hakkı Kılınç, Ergenekon case defendant retired Colonel Hasan Atilla Uğur and retired Lieutenant Colonels Adnan Sezer and Recep Cömert gave their statements as part of the investigation at the prosecution on 13 January. The military officers were involved in the destruction of the documents related to the "information fund" which Eruygur was in charge of between 2002 and 2004.

Ersöz: We destroyed the documents

The prosecutors called retired Brigadier General Levent Ersöz, another defendant of the Ergenekon case, in his room at the Çapa Medical Faculty in Istanbul, where he undergoes medical treatment. As reported by Taraf newspaper, Ersöz stated that documents related to the fund were destroyed before Eruygur retired in 2004. He said that the referring protocol was signed by gendarmerie officers Recep Cömert, Adnan Sezer, Atilla Uğur, the then JGK Staff President Lieutenant General Hakkı Kılınç, Şener Eryugur and by himself.

According to the news, the company Rem Foreign Trade Ltd. and its representative Cambridge Lake are mentioned in the report of the Prime Ministry Review Committee. Ersöz said that he did not know anything about the difference of the money obtained from the two companies.

The prosecutors askes Ersoy about Rem Agency executive Mehmet Sanibal, Sencer Özkan, Hakan Şanlı and Dean La-Vey mentioned in the report. Ersöz stated that he met Şanlı for the purchase of devices for scrambling frequencies and that he got a $ 5,000 discount. (TK/VK)