AAs the meeting point for the conversation in the Turkish capital Ankara, Türkan Erkan chose a café near the crime scene. Just a few steps away, the former leader of the right-wing extremist Gray Wolves, Sinan Ateş, was shot dead on the street a year ago. The 38-year-old social scientist from Hacettepe University had just finished his Friday prayers on December 30 and was walking along Ankara's 1456th Street with a bodyguard when two men approached on a motorcycle and fired five shots at him.
The murder has not been solved to this day. The suspected perpetrators were contract killers from an Istanbul drug gang. But who were the clients? Many traces lead into politics and an environment in which violence is used as a means of maintaining political power. Erkan, the man in the café, is convinced that those behind the attack are being protected for political reasons. “Two police officers from a special unit brought the contract killers from Istanbul to Ankara. Nobody can say that the state was not involved,” he says.
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