MURDER IN ANATOLIA - European Stability Initiative - ESI

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Then Ilker Cinar, a Turkish convert who had been working as a Protestant missionary in
Turkey for over ten years, added his voice to this chorus. In 2005 Cinar turned his back on
Christianity and, after stating publicly how wonderful it felt to return to the Muslim faith, he
explained on television the true intentions of Turkey‟s Protestants: the Christians wanted “to
re-conquer the holy land” and to work with the Kurdish PKK. 54 In 2005 he published a book
with the title “I was a missionary, the code is decoded – former Bishop Ilker Cinar reports”
(Ben bir misyonerdim, sifre cozuldu – Eski Baspapaz Ilker Cinar anlatiyor). There he
describes how missionaries are trying to destroy Turkey.
In 2007, the author Ergun Poyraz was arrested due to alleged close links to a group of
ultranationalists who had been hiding grenades in Istanbul and whom prosecutors charged
with having murdered a judge in Ankara in 2006, a false flag operation that was supposed to
look like an Islamist crime (see page 4). When Poyraz was captured, the police found many
confidential military documents in his home containing information which he used for his
books. 55 According to original documents included in the Ergenekon indictment, he had also
been receiving money from JITEM, the secret Gendarmery Intelligence and Anti-Terror
Organisation. 56 Sinan Aygun, the head of the Ankara Chamber of Commerce, was also
arrested. He had been in close contact with key Ergenekon suspects 57 , including general
Sener Eruygur, the head of the gendarmerie who allegedly planned to carry out a military
coup in 2003-2004. 58 Police found 2.5 million Euro in cash in Aygun‟s house, which
prosecutors claim would have been used to finance activities by this ultranationalist
network. 59
Tuncer Kilinc, the anti-European former general secretary of the National Security Council,
was also arrested in 2008 and indicted for being a member of the same conspiratorial
network. Prosecutors found that he had also attended numerous meetings with other alleged
anti-government and anti-Christian conspirators in the Istanbul Turkish Orthodox Church,
where many of the crimes were allegedly discussed. Members of that very group had played a
prominent role in the hate-campaign against Christians and in particular against Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink. 60
Finally, it emerged in 2008 that Ilker Cinar had not in fact ever been a genuine convert. He
had been on the payroll of the Turkish military since 1992, even while posing as a Protestant
pastor and infiltrating Turkey‟s small Protestant community. 61 In fact, as became clear during
the Malatya trials, the intense interest of parts of the state, in particular the gendarmerie, in
the activities of Christian missionaries had turned this small group into one of the most
closely watched groups in the country.
54
Ilker Cinar on Flash TV in February 2005; quoted in Kai Strittmatter, “Falscher Christ wollte die Turkei
retten” (False Christian wanted to save Turkey), Tagesanzeiger, 16 June 2008,
http://sc.tagesanzeiger.ch/dyn/news/ausland/890253.html.
55
I. Ergenekon Indictment, pp. 683, 684.
56
I. Ergenekon Indictment, p. 667.
57
Such as the spokesperson of the Turkish Orthodox Church, Sevgi Erenerol, ultra-nationalist lawyer Kemal
Kerincsiz and retired general Veli Kucuk, one of the alleged founders of JITEM.
58
II. Ergenekon Indictment, p. 1,063.
59
II. Ergenekon Indictment, p. 1,063.
60
III. Ergenekon Indictment, p. 626.
61
See also Ilker Cinar, “Ben bir misyonerdim, sifre cozuldu”, Ozan Yayincilik, 2005.
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