Sedat Edip Bucak (born 31 October 1960 in Siverek) is a Kurdish[1] politician and the leader of the Bucak tribe in Siverek, Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey. In the 1990s, he was a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. He survived the 1996 Susurluk car crash which led to the Susurluk scandal over links between police, politicians, the Turkish mafia and the Grey Wolves. In 2004 he was convicted of involvement in the Susurluk criminal gang, overturning a previous acquittal.
Life edit
He was born in Siverek in 1960. His father is İsmail Hakkı.[2]
He was elected to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in 1991, representing Şanlıurfa for the True Path Party.
In October 1993 he held a meeting with Democracy Party (DEP) Siirt MP Zübeyir Aydar and Şırnak MP Selim Sadak. In this meeting, he declared that the state had done everything to destroy the fraternity between the Turkish and Kurdish nations. In December 1993 he organized the distribution of a leaflet entitled "Siverek Youth" in the district center of Siverek.
He was re-elected in the 1995 general election. He was the sole survivor of the Susurluk car crash in November 1996 which led to the Susurluk scandal.[3] The other three crash victims were drug smuggler Abdullah Çatlı and his girlfriend Gonça Us, and the director of the Police Academy in Istanbul Hüseyin Kocadağ.[3] The crashed Mercedes belonged to Bucak. Bucak's parliamentary immunity was revoked, but it was reinstated when he was re-elected in 1999, putting the Susurluk-related trial on hold.[4] In the 1990s he was also in charge of a village guards unit of the Bucak tribe[5] which at the time had 10,000 men.[6]
Bucak failed to win a seat in the 2002 general election, and as a result he lost his parliamentary immunity, and a case against him in relation to the Susurluk gang proceeded in December 2002.[7] In 2004 he was convicted of involvement in the Susurluk criminal gang, overturning a previous acquittal.[8] He was sentenced to one year in prison.[4]
References edit
- ^ Kinzer, Stephen (10 December 1996). "Scandal Links Turkish Aides To Deaths, Drugs and Terror". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
- ^ Sedat Bucak ve Mehmet Ağar hakkındaki Susurluk fezlekesi, T.C. İSTANBUL DEVLET GÜVENLİK MAHKEMESİ CUMHURİYET BAŞSAVCILIĞI. 30.01.1997
- ^ a b Gunter, Michael M. (1 June 1998). "Susurluk: The connection between turkey's intelligence community and organized crime". International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence. 11 (2): 120. doi:10.1080/08850609808435368. ISSN 0885-0607.
- ^ a b Hurriyet Daily News, 14 November 2006, Court announces ruling in Susurluk trial
- ^ Phillips, David L. (5 July 2017). The Kurdish Spring: A New Map of the Middle East. Routledge. p. 50. ISBN 9781351480376.
- ^ "TÜRKEI : Hochachtung vor einem Killer". Der Spiegel. October 1997. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
- ^ Turkish Daily News, 18 December 2002, Trial process for Asik and Bucak kicks off
- ^ Today's Zaman, 5 March 2004, Appeals Court Reverses Bucak's Acquital in Susurluk Case Archived 5 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
External links edit
- "1998 Report" (PDF). Ankara: Human Rights Foundation of Turkey. 2000. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 February 2009.
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