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Poisoning evidence found in body of Turkey's ex-leader
Source: Agencies |
November 27, 2012, Tuesday
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AN autopsy on the exhumed body of late President Turgut Ozal, who led Turkey out of military rule in the 1980s, has revealed evidence of poisoning, a newspaper reported yesterday.
There had long been rumors that Ozal, who died at 65 of heart failure in 1993, was murdered by militants of the "deep state" - a shadowy nationalist strain within the Turkish establishment of the day. He had angered some with his efforts to end the Kurdish conflict and survived an assassination bid in 1988.
His body, dug up last month on the orders of prosecutors investigating suspicions of foul play in his death, contained the banned insecticide DDT and the related compound DDE at 10 times the normal level, Today's Zaman cited sources from the state Forensic Medicine Institute as saying.
"Ozal was most likely poisoned with four separate substances," the paper reported the sources as saying, also naming the toxic metal cadmium and the radioactive elements americium and polonium as substances found in Ozal's remains.
Forensic institute officials declined to comment.
Suleyman Demirel, who followed Ozal as president, dismissed such allegations. "I don't agree with any of the allegations that Turgut Ozal was murdered," state-run Anatolian news agency reported Demirel as telling reporters.
Demirel, prime minister when Ozal died and subsequently president until 2000, did not elaborate.
Ozal helped shape modern Turkey through economic reforms that eased the grip of the state on business. He was in poor health in the years before he died. After undergoing a triple heart bypass operation in the US in 1987, he kept up a grueling schedule and remained overweight until he died.
It was military leaders who appointed him as a minister after a period of military rule following a 1980 coup. He went on to dominate Turkish politics as prime minister from 1983 to 1989. Parliament then elected him president.
There had long been rumors that Ozal, who died at 65 of heart failure in 1993, was murdered by militants of the "deep state" - a shadowy nationalist strain within the Turkish establishment of the day. He had angered some with his efforts to end the Kurdish conflict and survived an assassination bid in 1988.
His body, dug up last month on the orders of prosecutors investigating suspicions of foul play in his death, contained the banned insecticide DDT and the related compound DDE at 10 times the normal level, Today's Zaman cited sources from the state Forensic Medicine Institute as saying.
"Ozal was most likely poisoned with four separate substances," the paper reported the sources as saying, also naming the toxic metal cadmium and the radioactive elements americium and polonium as substances found in Ozal's remains.
Forensic institute officials declined to comment.
Suleyman Demirel, who followed Ozal as president, dismissed such allegations. "I don't agree with any of the allegations that Turgut Ozal was murdered," state-run Anatolian news agency reported Demirel as telling reporters.
Demirel, prime minister when Ozal died and subsequently president until 2000, did not elaborate.
Ozal helped shape modern Turkey through economic reforms that eased the grip of the state on business. He was in poor health in the years before he died. After undergoing a triple heart bypass operation in the US in 1987, he kept up a grueling schedule and remained overweight until he died.
It was military leaders who appointed him as a minister after a period of military rule following a 1980 coup. He went on to dominate Turkish politics as prime minister from 1983 to 1989. Parliament then elected him president.
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