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Wed, June 30, 2010 | DebkaFile

Turkey: We’ll force Israel to take responsibility for its crimes

If Israelis in high official places were still slow to get the message of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s implacable anti-Israel campaign, they only had to listen to foreign ministry spokesman Burak Ozgergin’s vow in Ankara Wednesday, June 30:

“The (Turkish) public,” he said, “will see in step after step (taken by Turkey) how Ankara gets Israel to admit its crimes.”

He noted that Turkey had not once, but twice denied Israeli military planes entry to Turkish airspace.

Debkafile’s sources report that this verbal assault was consistent with the “revelation” unveiled Monday, June 28, by the Turkish MAZLUMDER organization, also known as “The Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples“, just before Erdogan flew home from Toronto where he attended the G20 summit and had a disastrous interview with US president Barack Obama.

The MAZLUMDER spokesman Yasin Divrak suddenly alleged that the nine Turks who died in a clash aboard the Gaza blockade-busting Mavi Marmara on May 31 were killed by shots from Israeli helicopters. He strongly challenged the Israeli case and its video footage attesting to Israeli commandos fighting back when set upon with knives and axes by violent activists as they landed on deck.

The spokesman of MAZLUMDER, which has an anti-Israel extremist record, presented four arguments to support his charge of Israeli war crimes:

1. Examinations of the bodies in Ankara showed that the victims were not killed by the commandos in self- defense but by helicopters, meaning that the Israelis shot first.

2. Autopsies showed some of the Turkish dead were shot several times in the head, i.e., from above, from the air. The Turkish “peace activists” were therefore “executed.”

3. The returned Turkish bodies were washed in alcohol to conceal evidence of gunpowder or chemical substances allegedly used by the naval commandos.

4. In all the bodies except one, the fatal bullets were not found. One bullet was found lodged in the brain of the activist Ibrahim Bilgen. It was of type which the Turkish doctors and ballistic experts said they had never seen before. The spokesman implied that this particular bullet was left in place as an Israel warning of what Turkey should expect if more flotillas were sent to Gaza.

According to debkafile’s Ankara sources, this piece of “evidence” is part of the dossier the Turks are stacking up for the international inquiry commission they intend demanding the UN General Assembly establish to investigate the flotilla incident. They need this extra probe to undermine the credibility and legitimacy of the public inquiry Israel has instituted by jurists and two international observers.

The Turkish prime minister is seriously on the warpath against Israel, after failing in their frigid interview in Toronto to persuade President Barack Obama to accept his alignment with the extremist Iran, Syria and Hizballah and his hostile breach with Israel. Obama confronted him with two options: friendship with Washington or deepening his bonds with Tehran.

Erdogan returned home with his mind made up. He would not capitulate to Washington and he was more determined than ever to provoke a showdown with Israel.

One of his first steps, according to our Ankara sources, will be to go around UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon and submit to the UN Assembly on behalf of Turkey, Iran and Syria a draft calling for an international committee to investigate Israel’s conduct in its May 31 raid on the Turkish flotilla. They can count on an automatic anti-Israel majority for its passage.

Observers in New York expect a panel of the same make-up and anti-Israel bias as the one headed by South African justice Goldstone which was tasked with investigating Israel’s 2009 campaign in the Gaza Strip.

The Turkish prime minister believes Ban will not demur and even the Obama administration may come around to it, although Washington originally praised Israel’s public inquiry, to which two reputable foreign observers had been attached, as fully meeting the UN Security Council’s requirements for a credible, impartial, transparent investigation. Ankara’s move is aimed at intensifying Israel’s diplomatic isolation in the world body.

To pre-empt it, the Netanyahu government decided this week to expand the mandate of the flotilla investigation panel headed by retired Justice Jacob Turkel. The next cabinet meeting will empower the commission to subpoena witnesses, question them under oath, issue letters of caution and have free access to any evidence needed to execute its mission.

MAZLUMDER files criminal complaint on Israel officials

MAZLUMDER organization filed a criminal complaint on Israeli officials over the attack to the Mavi Marmara on international waters. MAZLUMDER filed Criminal complaint on Şimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Avigdor Lieberman, Gabi Ashkenazi, Eliezer Meron. They’ve also called on Turkish citizens to join the criminal complaints and invited human rights organizations to act in the world.

MAZLUMDER filed the complaint in Sultanahmet Courthouse with the victims’ families against Israeli officials. Before filing the official complaint, Vice President of MAZLUMDER’s Istanbul Branch Lawyer Elif Uzunpinar made a statement:

“According to Turkish Penal Code 8, 9 and 13, this crime against Turkish ship Blue Marmara is a crime on Turkish soil, and these people (who are responsible of the attack), must be tried in Turkey, even they are to be judged in a foreign country”, she said.

“All international legal regulations, as UN Maritime Convention, Human Rights laws, the Geneva Convention and 8th, 9th, and 13th articles of the TPC, authorized Turkish courts for the trials for those who organized the attack without any doubt, the proceedings should be made in Turkey”, Uzunpinar said and added, “today, here, we are filing a criminal complaint against the Israeli authorities with the victims’ families for intentional homicide, attempted murder, willful injury, retention of freedom, prevention of the right to travel in international waters, property damage, looting, prevention of communication, torture, and abduction or detention of sea, rail or air transports.”

9 people were killed in the attack, including at least 7 Turks on a Turkish aid ship. 25 members of MAZLUMDER were attended flotilla. [Information Office of MAZLUMDER, june 02, 2010]