Hanefi Avcı, the former police chief of the central Anatolian province of Eskişehir, appeared on a news program on NTV yesterday and continued to voice criticisms on a number of ongoing judicial cases that are widely seen as essential for Turkish democracy, but his arguments were far from convincing, since a number of court rulings and his own past comments on the same issues contradict his current claims.

Avcı also announced yesterday that he had resigned from his post as Eskişehir's police chief and petitioned the Interior Ministry to be suspended. His petition was approved late yesterday.Avcı, who has become well-known because of his recent book “Haliç'te Yaşayan Simonlar” (Simons in the Golden Horn), in which he argues that ongoing criminal investigations aiming to confront illegal activities within the state, including the probe into Ergenekon -- a clandestine criminal network charged with plotting to overthrow the government -- lack evidence and are based on illegal wiretapping. However, it is known that the telephone conversations of Ergenekon suspects were legitimately wiretapped by prosecutors overseeing the probe through court orders.In fact, Avcı himself refutes his current claims in his past statements. Avcı had acknowledged that he saw a “Susurluk-like” structure when he examined some documents on the structure of Ergenekon when he testified to Ergenekon prosecutors in 2008. Avcı had played a vital role in the investigation into the Susurluk case, which started when a traffic accident in 1996 near the northwestern township of Susurluk exposed suspicious links between politicians, the mafia and the security forces. Avcı then prepared a report for Parliament on the Susurluk case.Avcı today argues that operations as part of the Ergenekon probe are being carried out by “circles” linked to religious leader Fethullah Gülen, who he accuses of secretly planning to overthrow the institutions of the state, including the police.According to Avcı, dozens of institutions, including the Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK), the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), National Police Department intelligence units, the Gendarmerie General Command's Criminal Investigation Department, the courts hearing Ergenekon-related cases and secret witnesses who expose Ergenekon's links with many illegal and anti-democratic actions in Turkey are all under the control of these circles, an argument which is by itself hard to believe. Avcı's claims have also been denied by Gülen's attorney, Orhan Erdemli, as imaginary and baseless. He said labeling the security forces and members of the judiciary “Gülen proxies” is a great insult to the courageous work these people are doing on a daily basis, risking their lives and reputations. Erdemli said these claims had been raised by others in the past, but that they, too, had failed to offer any proof. He emphasized that his client has won many cases involving such false accusations and personal attacks and that courts have awarded him monetary compensation for damages. One of the arguments put forward by Avcı that has been met with much criticism is his denial that the assassination of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was shot by an ultra-nationalist teenager outside the headquarters of the Agos weekly in 2007, was the work of a criminal network, most probably that of Ergenekon. However, a report recently sent by the İstanbul Police Department to the court hearing the Dink case said six defendants in the trial of Ergenekon had telephone conversations with defendants in the Dink case prior to Dink's murder. According to the report, these Ergenekon suspects include Veli Küçük, Kemal Kerinçsiz, Mustafa Levent Göktaş, Muzaffer Tekin and Erbay Çolakoğlu. Ergenekon defendants followed Dink before his murder, as well. A document called the Cage Operation Action Plan, which was exposed last November during a police raid on the office of retired Maj. Levent Bektaş, a suspect in the Ergenekon investigation, as part of a probe launched after the discovery of a large arms cache in İstanbul's Poyrazköy district in April, also refers to the killing of Dink as an “operation.” Case merger refutes Avcı Avcı has been also arguing that a 2006 Council of State attack was linked to Ergenekon “without any serious evidence.” However, prosecutors conducting the Ergenekon investigation have established a number of links between the two cases. The most conspicuous connections are the close relationship the gunman in the Council of State attack, Alparslan Arslan, had with some of the key suspects in the Ergenekon case. Dozens of documents, phone transcripts and photographs clearly indicate that Arslan and some of the Ergenekon suspects were in frequent contact with each other. When an arms cache inside a shanty house in İstanbul's Ümraniye district was discovered in the summer of 2007 -- the discovery that would be the start of the Ergenekon probe -- the Council of State shooting was reinvestigated by prosecutors on the Ergenekon case. The prosecutors suspect that Muzaffer Tekin, a retired captain believed to be one of the higher-up leaders of Ergenekon, incited Arslan to carry out the attack. Veli Küçük, a retired general and another key suspect in the Ergenekon investigation, was also implicated in the top court shooting. Osman Yıldırım, who had been convicted in the Council of State case by an Ankara court, said he and Arslan made the decision to stage the top court attack and another hand grenade attack on the Cumhuriyet daily together with Küçük in an apartment in Ataşehir, İstanbul. Telephone conversations recorded during the investigation also clearly show that Tekin and Arslan were connected as contacts. The two had at least 35 conversations on Tekin's cell phone.The Supreme Court of Appeals ruled in December of 2008 to merge the Council of State attack case with that of Ergenekon. Baykal affair document found on Ergenekon suspect's computer In his book Avcı argues that even the emergence of a video recording that resulted in the resignation of former Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal was the work of Gülen's followers. However, it has recently emerged that a document containing information about Baykal's alleged affair was found on the computer of Ergenekon suspect Ergun Poyraz. The document about the affair was dated Dec. 21, 2006, seven months before Poyraz's arrest. The document reportedly includes much “secret information” about Baykal, who was forced to resign from the leadership of his party in May when a video clip emerged showing him engaged in an intimate relationship with a CHP deputy who is also married. Documents found in the computer of Poyraz, a journalist known for his controversial conspiracy theories, show that he was preparing to write a book about Baykal titled “Arabic Child.” Indeed, Baykal's statements in the wake of the emergence of the video also contradict Avcı, as the former CHP leader emphasized while announcing his resignation that he believed in the sincerity of a message of sympathy he received from “Pennsylvania,” implying that he had been contacted by Gülen, a preacher, prolific writer and advocate of interfaith and intercultural dialogue, after the release of the videotape. TSK, TÜBİTAK refute Avcı's ‘fabrication' claimsAnother serious charge brought by Avcı in his controversial book is that the documents on the Sledgehammer coup plot were fabricated by the Gülen community. However, a statement by the TSK itself contradicts Avcı, who does not back up his claim with any evidence. In a statement released by the General Staff on Jan. 20 the TSK acknowledged that the Sledgehammer Security Operation Plan was devised in 2003, although it claimed that the plan was part of a series of “scenarios” by the armed forces drafted against external threats. “The plan seminar in question is part of the General Staff's operations program for the years 2003-2006. The aim of the seminar is to develop operation plans and train TSK staff against an external threat to Turkey. The seminar states a scenario that mentions a period full of increasing tension in the country,” the statement had said. TÜBİTAK has also confirmed that CDs and DVDs found among documents from the 2003 conference and containing the apparent military coup plan are original, adding that the coup documents were drafted in 2003 and were not added to the military seminar documents later, as claimed by opponents of the Sledgehammer investigation. Sledgehammer is a suspected coup plot concocted in 2003 at a military gathering. According to the plan, the military was to systematically foment chaos in society through violent acts, among which were planned bomb attacks on the Fatih and Beyazıt mosques in İstanbul. The plot allegedly sought to undermine the government to lay the groundwork for a military takeover.  27 August 2010, FridaySERKAN SAĞLAM  İSTANBUL