Death of Special Branch Head Oktay

According to news reports, Oktay, head of the Police Special Branch shot himself and later died in hospital. He was implicated by other suspects in the Ergenekon trial, who said that he had collaborated on creating a secret team.

Tolga Korkut

Police Special Operations head Behçet Oktay is said to have shot himself in his car Ankara yesterday (25 February). He later died in hospital.

An autopsy will be carried out to determine whether the death was a suicide.

Some news reports claimed that someone else was to be promoted to Oktay’s position and that he had been depressed.

Links to Ergenekon

Oktay had also been implicated in the investigation into the clandestine ultra-nationalist Ergenekon organisation. Two special branch officers from Elazığ and Antalya who had been arrested in the investigation claimed that Oktay had asked them to help former Special Branch head İbrahim Şahin, also under arrest, to build a clandestine special team.

According to the Yeni Şafak newspaper, the prosecution in the Ergenekon case has found evidence of many telephone conversations between Oktay and his predecessor Şahin.

Oktay was Special Operations head since 1997. Between 1994 and 1997 he was on duty in the southeastern city of Diyarbakır. During that period retired Colonel Abdülkerim Kırca was commander in Diyarbakır. He killed himself last month. Abdülkadir Aygan, former PKK militant and later assassin for the clandestine Gendarmerie Intelligence Anti-Terrorism Unit JITEM, said that Kırca had been involved in unsolved murders in the area, ordering some and carrying out others by himself.

Oktay was born in Malatya, southeastern Turkey, in 1957. He went to police highschool and later the police academy. He did duty in the provinces of Erzincan, Kars, Istanbul, Afyonkarahisar and Bingöl. Oktay had been awarded the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) Medal of Distinguished Courage and Self-Sacrifice.(TK/AG)