Türkiye’s BBP hopes for answers over FETÖ suspicion in leader’s death

A renewed push in the case into the death of nationalist politician Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu may finally bring closure to his family and his Great Union Party (BBP), which has long claimed the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) may have played a role in the helicopter crash that killed him in 2009.

Yazıcıoğlu, his aides and a journalist were traveling in the southern province of Kahramanmaraş on March 25, 2009, when their helicopter crashed in a mountainous area. Search-and-rescue efforts were stalled due to bad weather, but an earlier investigation into the crash had suggested that the efforts could have been deliberately delayed. Still, no substantial progress was made in the case, except for findings that indirectly pointed to the involvement of people linked to FETÖ in delaying the search efforts. Earlier this month, authorities detained new suspects in the case, including a military pilot with alleged ties to the terrorist group, whose leader had “hailed” the death of Yazıcıoğlu, a staunch critic of the group.

BBP Deputy Chair Ekrem Alfatlı told Ihlas News Agency (IHA) on Tuesday that they had been waiting for “justice” for 17 years and for “the truth to be revealed.” “Now, there is a new process,” he said, lauding the course of the investigation. He noted that the case was transferred to Ankara from Kahramanmaraş, which meant a new in-depth investigation focusing on “deliberate manslaughter.”

“This was not an accident,” Alfatlı said, emphasizing that it was an “assassination.”

“BBP awaits the truth to be revealed. Transferring the case from Kahramanmaraş to Ankara is an important development, especially in terms of the legal aspect of the case. Previously, the case was handled mostly as allegations of theft and negligence,” he said, referring to allegations that GPS devices had been removed from the crashed helicopter, reportedly as part of a cover-up.

Alfatlı noted that many questions remained unanswered. “We expect answers on why the helicopter’s location could not be determined quickly, why high levels of carbon monoxide were found in the blood of those who lost their lives, why radar systems went offline for 4.5 minutes at the exact moment of the crash and failed to capture any images, why the helicopter was searched for in a different area despite claims that its location had been identified two hours after the incident, why the bodies were found by villagers three days later, and why certain equipment on the helicopter had been removed,” he said.

Kemal Yavuz, the lawyer for Yazıcıoğlu’s family, said aerial activity in the area at the time of the crash was crucial to the case. Yavuz said they had access to findings showing that hard drives containing radar records that may confirm the presence of three military jets near the crash site before the incident, and which reportedly caused the crash, were destroyed. Yavuz said this was the most important evidence indicating that the crash was not simply an accident. He said they obtained this data during an investigation in 2014 but later found that the findings recorded by military experts had subsequently been destroyed, according to official documents dating back to 2025. “We believe that the evidence was covered up,” he underlined.

Yavuz said the evidence and the recent detentions pointed to what they had been saying all along: that the crash was an assassination of Yazıcıoğlu by FETÖ. “FETÖ was most active in the Turkish air force in the past, so it is quite possible that they played a role in this case,” he said, referring to the terrorist group’s infiltration of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), which ultimately led to the 2016 coup attempt.

DAILYSABAH