Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
September 14, 2011

The Aselsan Suicides

Back in February this report from Turkey got me interested:

The suspicious deaths of four engineers who were declared to have committed suicide might have been murder, according to a new indictment into an espionage gang within the naval forces.

All four men worked for ASELSAN, a defense industry giant that produces technology for the Turkish military. The deaths are being investigated again as part of the ongoing probe into a gang that faces accusations of making use of prostitutes, blackmail and espionage. There are 56 suspects in the investigation, including military officers.

Recently, the İstanbul Police Department’s Anti-Organized Crime Unit requested the closed case files of Hüseyin Başbilen, Halim Ünsem Ünal and Evrim Yançeken -- who were reported to have killed themselves between 2006 and 2007 -- in order to re-launch an investigation. All three were assigned to encryption and decryption projects at ASELSAN and had worked on highly strategic projects in the past.

Was the police really interested in those suicides or was this one of those political investigations, not unheard of in Turkey, that are held simply to remove the suspects from their job?

Back in 2007 three suicides within six month were so suspicious that they led to an inquiry in the Turkish parliament. Nothing came out of it. Those engineers were allegedly working "a critical project that would have largely freed the Turkish defense industry from depending on foreign technology", "the modernization of F-16 fighter jets" and on software for a new tank. Their families did not believe they committed suicide but suspected they were suicided. Who then would have interest to kill them and why?

While the fourth suicide and the investigation looked suspicious I did not find enough to understand the real story. There were lots of rumors about those suicides but few verifiable facts and no obvious motive for murder. This recent news item though may now explain the reason for their death:

Turkey's Military Electronics Industry (ASELSAN) has produced a new identification friend or foe (IFF) system for Turkish jet fighters, warships and submarines and the new software, contrary to the older, US-made version, does not automatically identify Israeli planes and ships as friends, a news report said on Tuesday.

The new IFF has already been installed in Turkish F-16s and is expected to be installed in all Navy ships and submarines, the report, published in Turkish daily Star, said. It will be fully operational when it is installed in all military planes, warships and submarines.

The F-16 jet fighters, purchased from the US, came with pre-installed IFF software that automatically identifies Israeli fighters and warships as friends, disabling Turkish F-16s from targeting Israeli planes or ships. ASELSAN-made IFF will allow Turkish military commanders to identify friends and foes on the basis of national considerations.

Turkey was unable to make modifications to the friend or foe identification codes in US-made F-16s, while Israel was given a different version of the software allowing Israeli authorities to make modifications. Israel was also authorized to view the version given to Turkey, according to Star.

The killing of foreign engineers and scientists working on military or nuclear projects is a favorite pastime for the Israeli Mossad (see Iran, nuclear). But back in 2006 and 2007 when the first three engineers died Turkey - at least publicly - still had quite friendly relations with Israel. Then again, Israel does not really mind spying on its allies.

Turkey's president Erdogan is arguing quite loud against Israeli misdeeds. That gets explained with the killing by Israel of nine Turks on the Gaza flotilla ship. But there may be more behind Erdogan's turn from Israeli ally to foe. The sabotaging of an important Turkish military project through the killing of these engineers might well be another reason for the change in Turkish foreign policy.

Posted by b on September 14, 2011 at 6:34 UTC | Permalink

Comments

A remarkable instance of hubris on the part of the Gold Medallist in that sport. There are real opportunities in the arms industry to supply countries with independent foreign policies.

Posted by: bevin | Sep 14 2011 14:44 utc | 1

@ b

The term, suicided, has been coined in the last few years; and it means that a person is murdered and it is made to look like suicide. This is a great post; and you mean to say that the men were likely suicided; but the wording "Their families did not believe they suicided themselves." is not saying what you intend. Something corrected to read, "Their families did not believe these were suicides" or "The men's families did not believe they committed suicide", would be clearer.

Posted by: Copeland | Sep 14 2011 15:07 utc | 2

@Copeland - thanks for your help, corrected.

Posted by: b | Sep 14 2011 15:22 utc | 3

Why is Turkey still in NATO? A fun way for them to get America's attention would be to denounce the agreement under Article XIX, give the US twelve months to cut the crap and get its Zionist goons under control. For that matter, why is Greece still in NATO? It's just a big defense procurement liability that they can't afford. At this point it's NATO or Europe, they can't have both. Sometimes it seems that the obsessive fixation on Euro disintegration helps distract from the cracks in NATO.

Posted by: ...---... | Sep 14 2011 15:36 utc | 4

Think you are reaching with the Israel-angle B.

Sounds to me like an internal Turkish coverup. Truth be told the Turkish military-intelligeance-criminal axis appears to be alot murkier than most states as seen by the Ergenekon conspiracy in 2007 and the 1996 Susurluk Incident. Plenty of people in the Turkish deep state that are capable of assassinating a group that comes across some uncomfortable information which is why Erogan's current rolling back of the military state is such good news.

"The deaths are being investigated again as part of the ongoing probe into a gang that faces accusations of making use of prostitutes, blackmail and espionage."

My guess is that ASELSAN was involved in bribing military officials and these employees were involved or came across something they shouldn't have. Likely suspects would be either the company itself or the military.

Israel is assassinating scientists on the Nuke Program in Iran but I don't see why they would take out these IT Engineers in friendly Turkey. Just seems like a bit of a stretch. Israel wouldn't have known in 2007 that Turkey would turn on them in 2011 and frankly Mossad doesn't appear to be competant enough to suicide people (remember the Dubai assassination? most of the Iran hits are car bombings). More than likely the Turkish police seem to think these suicides are in some way linked to the current prostitution, blackmail, espionage case they working.

Posted by: Colm O' Toole | Sep 14 2011 17:51 utc | 5

Mossad doesn't appear to be competant enough to suicide people

both Aurthur Koestler and Primo Levi might choose to disagree with you there, Colm . . . ;-)

Posted by: Hu Bris | Sep 14 2011 23:14 utc | 6

If b's hypothesis were correct, that were a dim and grim picture of the 21st century: men killed over a trivial good-programming practice, namely, giving the user write privileges on config files that the vendor would rather keep locked down. I hate to think evil can be that banal.

Posted by: Cloud | Sep 15 2011 1:49 utc | 7

@ Hu Bris comment 6
Do you have a reasonable source for this ? While I don't know much about Koestler, that allegation about Primo Levi seems seriously far fetched to say the least.

(no that I doubt about Mossad being capable of 'suiciding people' - blackmail seems one trade where they excel at, along with spying on allies)

Posted by: philippe | Sep 15 2011 4:19 utc | 8

The weapons software issue, valid though it may be to Turkey and NATO, is no reason to kill computer programmers. They're a dime a dozen. If you wanted to kill all the programmers on Earth capable of analysing and modifying complex software for the Turkish government there'd be hundreds, if not thousands, of names on the list.

The Brits were balking at the prospect of buying the Joint Strike Fighter because the US software could compromise UK operational control in a combat situation.

SOS @ #4 raises a good point. Turkey's membership of NATO seems to be a triumph of enthusiasm over common sense. If one examined the agreement it would probably reveal that Turkey signed up to maximise its weapons-procurement base rather than become an essential part of the Imperial Alliance. There'd be useful intel advantages for Turkey. It's debatable who's using who the most, imo.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 16 2011 0:51 utc | 9

True, H, Turkey got limited technology transfer for domestic assembly and re-export and that's worth something, in terms of commercial ties with Lockheed Martin. But Turkey tends to get its F16 avionics via FMS, Foreign Military Sales (government to government) rather than DCS (commercial war profiteering). That makes it a US Defense Department procurement on Turkey's behalf, with Turkey nominally in control of the system configuration. The deal they got makes them a distinctly junior partner compared to the MIDS founders, Germany, Italy, Spain, and France. Turkey can tinker with the systems all they want, but as long as they depend on Viasat et al., the US can cut off maintenance and configuration management support. So as long as NATO makes Turkey helpless against Israeli attack, diversified sourcing would do more to bolster Turkey's security than the NATO guarantee is worth (Does anybody really think Israel couldn't get away with a little Blitzkrieg on Turkey?) Article XIX denunciation would do wonders for Turkey's international standing, and USG's capacity for retribution is negligible now, with Europe on the brink. They should go for it.

Posted by: ...---... | Sep 16 2011 2:50 utc | 10

b--

Thanks for this find!

Is it worth killing programmers?

There is a world of difference between new programmers--who are cheap, or may be more or less cheap, depending on how good they are--and programmers who are up to speed with the details of an ongoing, major, large, intricate project. The latter are always valuable, almost infinitely so.

@ 7--

Yes, Cloud, welcome to the 21st century. The 20th century was just practice and warm-up--a fight over ideology, control, and colonies. In the 21st century, no ideologies are at issue, just a Last-Man-Standing fight to the death over dwindling resources. All nations have bought in; all nations have to play; all nations will go down to destruction, even (or perhaps especially) the winners.

(Though individuals don't. Gather your friends and plot your own route out of the disaster!)

Posted by: Gaianne | Sep 17 2011 21:37 utc | 11

@ #11.
I think a clarification of my use of the expression "dime a dozen" is in order.
I used it in the sense that good programmers are plentiful - not that they are unusually, or surprisingly, cheap to hire.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 19 2011 13:18 utc | 12

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