Custody report gets lost in investigation on murder of Sinan Ateş

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The police report kept during detaining a suspect was lost in the investigation of the murder on December 30 in an armed attack, of Sinan Ateş, former president of the Grey Wolves and an academician at the Hacettepe University in Ankara.

Tolgahan Demirbaş, a member of the board of the Grey Wolves headquarters, who is being charged with sharing the information about the location before and helping the gunman Eray Özyağcı to escape after the murder, was detained in a house in Ankara. A deputy, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Mersin MP Olcay Kılavuz was also in the house when the police came for Demirbaş. It was claimed that during the event the politician told the police officers, "You should go. Your boss should come!"

DW Turkish reported today (March 23) that the police report prepared for the custody of Demirbaş at that house was lost.

In the investigation run by three prosecutors, it was expected that the writing of the indictment would start in the following days, and the custody report was one of the important pieces of evidence.

The report which is lost and could not be included in the investigation file, and therefore the prosecutor's office was not able to take any action against MP Olcay Kılavuz.

"Politics  not far from this nefarious murder"

Sinan Ateş's wife Ayşe Ateş said on March 20 in a statement that her husband was not active in politics but that "it will be seen when the facts are revealed with documents that politics was not far from this nefarious murder."

The joint presidential candidate of the Nation Alliance of six political parties, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu visited Ayşe Ateş and also mentioned her in one of the first speeches after he was nominated. In this speech, Kılıçdaroğlu named many who suffered injustices as he put it in the last years of the Erdoğan government, and said that he was not a candidate alone but that "the candidate is all of us." 

What happened?

Sinan Ateş, the ex-president of Grey Wolves, an ultranationalist group affiliated with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), was killed in Ankara on December 30 in an armed attack.

Ateş became the leader of the Grey Wolves in 2019. In the period when İYİ (Good) Party, a splinter movement from the MHP, was founded, Ateş came out in favor of MHP leadership and criticized those leaving MHP in order to join the İYİ Party.

On April 2, 2020, Ateş resigned from the presidency of the Grey Wolves, following the instruction of MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli according to reports, and started to work in the Hacettepe University History department as an academician.

Thousands attended the funeral in Bursa's Great Mosque, on December 31.

MHP did not express condolence, and no officials from the party attended the funeral. 

About Grey Wolves

The Grey Wolves are seen as the paramilitary wing of the MHP, the political party supporting President Erdoğan's government and in the People's Alliance together with his AKP.

In 2020 France officially banned the Grey Wolves after a center dedicated to the memory of those who died in the mass killings of Armenians during World War I was defaced with graffiti, including the name of the Grey Wolves.

Earlier last year, the European Parliament called on the European Union and its member states to examine the possibility of adding the Grey Wolves to the EU terrorist list.

In its 2019-2020 report prepared by Turkey rapporteur Nacho Sanchez Amor, the EP voiced concerns about the group, saying it was expanding to worrying levels not only in Turkey but also in EU countries. 

(ME/PE)