History of Unsolved Murders in Turkey: Occupational Groups, Chronology and the Anatomy of the Deep State

Summary: Political murders from the Republican era that were never solved or went unpunished are listed by professional group: journalists and writers, academics, legal professionals and state officials, businesspeople, trade unionists, and the forcibly disappeared. The article compiles the structures named in official reports into a table and explains how the cases were left without result through statutes of limitations, transfers, state secrets, and mass acquittals.

Legal Framework and Methodological Note: This study is based on the Reports of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) Research Commission, the Prime Ministry Inspection Board Investigations (Susurluk Report), the indictments of the State Security Courts (DGM) and Heavy Penal Courts, and the final violation judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The claims and rumors included in the text are grounded in concrete records that have appeared in official state reports, statements of defendants/witnesses/confessors, or reputable investigative journalism archives. Under the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, the presumption of innocence is fundamental for persons against whom there is no final court judgment.

Introduction: Anatomy of a Concept — "Perpetrator Unknown" or "Perpetrator Famous"?

In Turkey's recent political history, the concept of "unsolved murder" does not describe ordinary criminal offenses whose perpetrator could not be found in terms of forensic medicine or police criminology. In the literature of political science and criminal law, this term refers to political eliminations whose planning, logistics, execution, and subsequent cover-up mechanisms extend directly or indirectly to centers within the state, intelligence services, paramilitary groups, or state-mafia alliances.

The 1995 Report of the TBMM Research Commission on Unsolved Political Murders and the 1998 Prime Ministry Susurluk Report determined that political murders in Turkey occurred in three main waves according to the dynamics of the period:

1940s - 1950s (Early Cold War / Ideological Eliminations): On the threshold of the bipolar world, the first systematic unofficial interventions against the left and dissident intellectuals (the Sabahattin Ali case).
1970s (Gladio, Special Warfare, and the Strategy of Chaos Toward September 12): The Special Warfare Department, established under NATO's "Stay Behind" doctrine, and paramilitary gangs targeting prosecutors, trade unionists, and intellectuals in order to build an environment of social violence that would lead the country to a military coup.
1990s (Total Special War, JİTEM, and the Susurluk Gang): The dark period in which the Kurdish question deepened, "irregular warfare" methods were legitimized under the National Security Council (MGK) concept, and journalists, members of parliament, Kurdish businesspeople, and even dissident commanders within the army itself were executed through "Death Lists."

1. Chronological Breakdown by Professional Group

A. Journalists, Writers, and Media Workers

Journalists and writers, who are the bearers of democratic public oversight, are the professional group chosen as the first target in Turkey in order to prevent the exposure of deep structures and to terrorize public memory.

Sabahattin Ali (Writer, Journalist)

Date: April 2, 1948
Location: Kırklareli / Bulgarian Border
Profile and Reason for Being Targeted: A writer who was constantly arrested because of his sharply dissident articles in the magazine Marko Paşa and who was flagged as a "objectionable communist" by the single-party and security bureaucracy of the period.
Incident and Judicial Process: He was killed by a blow to the head with a stick in an area near the border by the smuggler/guide Ali Ertekin, with whom he had agreed to flee abroad. Ertekin claimed he committed the murder out of "national feelings"; he received a 4-year prison sentence but was released shortly afterward under an amnesty law.
Claims and Rumors: It has been proven that Ali Ertekin was a member of the National Security Service (MAH). Important witnesses of the period (Kemal Sülker, Aziz Nesin) claimed that Sabahattin Ali was in fact not killed in Kırklareli but in Istanbul at Sansaryan Han (Police Headquarters) during interrogation and torture, and that the body was later taken to the border and a scenario was constructed that he was "shot while fleeing."
Sources: Kemal Sülker, Sabahattin Ali Olayı; TBMM Minutes (1948).

Abdi İpekçi (Editor-in-Chief of Milliyet Newspaper)

Date: February 1, 1979
Location: Teşvikiye, Istanbul
Profile and Reason for Being Targeted: A respected columnist known for his conciliatory, social democratic line, who in the days before his murder was investigating the connections of smuggling networks, arms traffickers, and centers within the state in Turkey.
Incident and Judicial Process: He was riddled with bullets in his car near his home. The triggerman, Mehmet Ali Ağca, was caught 5 months later. However, Ağca was smuggled out of the heavily guarded Maltepe Military Prison dressed in a military uniform; he later attempted to assassinate the Pope in Rome in 1981.
Claims and Rumors: It has been alleged that the Idealist commandos behind Ağca were coordinated by the Special Warfare Department and foreign intelligence services (CIA/BND-linked Gladio networks). The key figures in the team that smuggled Ağca out of prison are Oral Çelik and Abdullah Çatlı. The murder was designed to create horror in public opinion in the run-up to the September 12 military coup.
Sources: Uğur Mumcu, Silah Kaçakçılığı ve Terör; TBMM 1995 Commission Report.

Çetin Emeç (Hürriyet Newspaper Editorial Coordinator)

Date: 7 March 1990
Location: Suadiye, Istanbul
Incident and Judicial Process: As he got into his car to go to work in the morning, he and his driver Sinan Ercan were caught in crossfire by two masked assailants. The "Turkish Islamic Commandos" and "Islamic Movement" organizations claimed the attack. Years later, İrfan Çağrıcı was captured and tried.
Claims and Rumors: It is the most critical link in the chain of 1990 assassinations (Aksoy, Dursun, Üçok). It has been claimed that behind the attack were professional assassination teams linked to the Iranian secret service VEVAK/SAVAMA, or Gladio-type consortia seeking to provoke a secular-religious polarization in Turkey.
Sources: Istanbul State Security Court Umut Case Indictment; Hikmet Çetinkaya, Din Baronunun Suikastı.

Turan Dursun (Researcher Writer, Former Mufti)

Date: 4 September 1990
Location: Koşuyolu, Istanbul
Profile and Reason for Being Targeted: Because of his books criticizing traditional Islamic dogmas, the hadith corpus and theological sources, and his articles in 2000’e Doğru magazine, he had become a direct target of religious groups.
Incident and Judicial Process: He was killed in an armed attack as he left his home. The triggerman Arif Peker and Islamic Movement leader İrfan Çağrıcı were tried.
Claims and Rumors: Immediately after Dursun's murder, plainclothes police teams entered his home and took away in sacks the writer's vast archive, which he had worked on for years and which contained very important documents on Islamic history; it is reflected in official records that this archive "disappeared" at the police department.
Sources: Istanbul State Security Court Records; TBMM 1995 Research Commission Report.

Musa Anter ("Ape Musa", Writer, Journalist)

Date: 20 September 1992
Location: Seyrantepe, Diyarbakır
Profile and Reason for Being Targeted: The symbolic name of the Kurdish enlightenment; writer for Özgür Gündem and Yeni Ülke newspapers.
Incident and Judicial Process: In Diyarbakır, where he had gone for a culture festival, he was lured out of the hotel where he was staying under the pretext of "reconciling a land dispute"; he was shot in a deserted street in the Seyrantepe neighborhood. Orhan Miroğlu, who was with him, was seriously wounded.
Claims and Rumors: Abdülkadir Aygan, who confessed to the existence and crimes of JİTEM, confessed with sketches that the murder was organized by JİTEM Group Commander Cem Ersever himself, Mahmut Yıldırım (Yeşil) and Cemil Işık, code-named Hogir, and that Hamit Yıldırım pulled the trigger. The case was dismissed in 2022 on the grounds that the 30-year extraordinary statute of limitations had expired.
Sources: Abdülkadir Aygan, İtirafçı: Bir JİTEM’ci Anlattı; Prime Ministry Susurluk Report (1998); ECtHR Musa Anter and Others v. Turkey Judgment (2006).

Uğur Mumcu (Cumhuriyet Newspaper Investigative Journalist)

Date: 24 January 1993
Location: Gaziosmanpaşa, Ankara
Profile and Reason for Being Targeted: Turkey's most competent investigative journalist; he was working on arms smuggling, drug routes, state-mafia-sect relations and PKK-intelligence ties.
Incident and Judicial Process: He lost his life when a C-4 type plastic explosive placed in his Renault 12 brand vehicle in front of his house exploded. The sweeping of evidence at the scene by municipal cleaning workers created a judicial scandal.
Claims and Rumors: At the time he was killed, Mumcu was investigating Abdullah Öcalan's possible contacts with MİT in his early years (Kürt Dosyası). It has been alleged that Mehmet Ağar, the then General Director of Security, who met with Mumcu's wife Güldal Mumcu after the incident, said "If I pull one brick, the wall collapses", and that State Security Court Prosecutor Kemal Ayhan confessed, "The state did this, we cannot find the perpetrators". Although years later it was billed to the "Tevhid-Selam" organization, the conviction that the murder was a deep state organization has not changed.
Sources: Güldal Mumcu, İçimden Geçen Zaman; Uğur Mumcu, Kürt Dosyası; Ankara 11th Heavy Penal Court Umut Case Judgment.

Metin Göktepe (Evrensel Newspaper Reporter)

Date: 8 January 1996
Location: Eyüp Indoor Sports Hall, Istanbul
Incident and Judicial Process: While following the funeral of detainees killed in Ümraniye Prison, he was taken into custody on the pretext that he "did not have a yellow press card". At the Eyüp Indoor Sports Hall where he was taken, he was beaten to death by police officers. The then Prime Minister Tansu Çiller and security officials made statements such as "he fell from a chair" and "he was found dead in the park".
Claims and Rumors: The Göktepe case is one of the rare files in which police officers were punished, under public and professional pressure. However, the then Istanbul Security Director and civil authorities who gave the order were never included in the investigation.
Sources: Metin Göktepe Trial Records; Turkish Journalists Association Archive.

Ahmet Taner Kışlalı (Academic, Writer, Former Minister of Culture)

Date: 21 October 1999
Location: Çayyolu, Ankara
Incident and Judicial Process: He lost his life when his left arm was severed as a result of the explosion of a C-4 type bomb in a bag left on the windshield wiper arm of his car.
Claims and Rumors: Immediately after the February 28 process, it has been claimed that it was planned by Special Warfare/intelligence cliques in order to polarize society by targeting Kemalist intellectuals and to reshape the army-politics balance.
Sources: Ankara State Security Court Umut Operation Indictment.

Hrant Dink (Editor-in-Chief of Agos Newspaper)

Date: 19 January 2007
Location: Şişli, Istanbul (In Front of Agos Newspaper)
Profile and Reason for Being Targeted: An Armenian journalist known for his peaceful and courageous identity who advocated reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian peoples; after the Sabiha Gökçen news, he was targeted by a statement from the General Staff and by the nationalist media.
Incident and Judicial Process: He was killed by 17-year-old Ogün Samast, who shot him in the back of the neck.
Claims and Rumors: It emerged that before the assassination he was "warned" by MİT officers at the Istanbul Governorate, that the Trabzon Police and Gendarmerie (the team of Ramazan Akyürek and Ali Fuat Yılmazer) had been aware of the assassination preparation months in advance, and that the murder was deliberately allowed to happen. The murder was used as a "ground-clearing" operation in the power struggle of the Ergenekon and FETÖ structures within the state.
Sources: Istanbul 14th High Criminal Court Dink Murder Main Case Decision (2021); Nedim Şener, Dink Cinayeti ve İstihbarat Yalanları.

B. Intellectuals, Academics and Thinkers

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bedrettin Cömert (Art Historian, Critic)

Date: 11 July 1978
Location: Gaziosmanpaşa, Ankara
Incident and Judicial Process: He was caught in crossfire while in his car; his wife was seriously injured. The hitmen Üzeyir Bayrak and Rıfat Yıldırım were identified.
Claims and Rumors: He was a member of the inspection board investigating the fascist cadre-building and irregularities at Hacettepe University. It has been stated that the murder was organized in connection with the Special Warfare Department by paramilitary foci seeking to take over the universities before September 12.
Sources: Uğur Mumcu, Çıkmaz Sokak; Ankara Martial Law Court File.

Prof. Dr. Cavit Orhan Tütengil (Sociologist, Istanbul University Faculty Member)

Date: 7 December 1979
Location: Levent, Istanbul
Incident and Judicial Process: He was killed in an armed attack by four people while waiting for a bus at the stop. Papers signed "Anti-Terror Unit" were left on his body. Even at his funeral, police and military units intervened against the crowd.
Claims and Rumors: It is accepted that he was executed by Gladio cells in order to terrorize society by physically eliminating leftist thinkers close to the line of the Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP) and DİSK. The perpetrators were never found.
Sources: TBMM 1995 Report; Sociology Journal Special Issue (1980).

Prof. Dr. Muammer Aksoy (Jurist, Founding Chairman of ADD)

Date: 31 January 1990
Location: Bahçelievler, Ankara
Profile and Reason for Being Targeted: One of the commission members who prepared the 1961 Constitution; Chairman of the Atatürkist Thought Association (ADD) and the Turkish Law Institution; a legal genius known for his nationalist stance against the concessions of foreign oil and mining companies.
Incident and Judicial Process: He was killed by gunfire at the entrance of his apartment building. The "Islamic Revenge Organization" claimed the act.
Claims and Rumors: This is the beginning of the wave of intellectual massacres in the 1990s. It has been claimed that the assassination was carried out not purely for religious motives but by international cartels and their domestic intelligence extensions because of his work exposing Turkey's energy and mining policies.
Sources: Umut Case Indictment; TBMM Research Commission Archive.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bahriye Üçok (Theologian, Former Senator, SHP Council Member)

Date: 6 October 1990
Location: Çankaya, Ankara
Profile and Reason for Being Targeted: A reformist theologian who interpreted the place of women in Islam from a modern and secular perspective and opposed the mandatory headscarf.
Incident and Judicial Process: She was killed by a C-4 that exploded while she was opening a package that looked like a book sent by courier.
Claims and Rumors: Although the courier company identified the person who delivered the suspicious package, the individual was not caught and the investigation was neglected by the security forces, which concretized the suspicion that the perpetrator was protected.
Sources: State Security Court Files; Uğur Mumcu Research Foundation Archive.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Necip Hablemitoğlu (Historian, Ankara University Lecturer)

Date: 18 December 2002
Location: Çankaya, Ankara
Profile and Reason for Being Targeted: A researcher about to publish the book Köstebek, which describes the Gülen Community's organization within the police and judiciary; he was also investigating the influence of German foundations over the Bergama gold mines (Bergama Dosyası).
Incident and Judicial Process: He was shot in the head and killed in front of his home. Special ammunition casings were found at the scene. After the case remained unsolved for 20 years, a lawsuit was filed in 2022 against members of the Special Forces Command (Mustafa Levent Göktaş, Nuri Gökhan Bozkır).
Claims and Rumors: The indictment argued that the assassination was carried out by an unofficial junta within the TSK/Special Forces, alleged to be linked to FETÖ, which wanted to prevent Hablemitoğlu's appointment as Undersecretary of MİT.
Sources: Ankara 28th Heavy Penal Court Hablemitoğlu Assassination Indictment (2022).

C. Lawyers, Politicians and State/Security Officials

This category is the most concrete evidence showing that deep structures ruthlessly eliminated not only civilian opponents but also prosecutors, commanders and politicians who, remaining loyal to the state and the laws, went after unofficial structures.

Doğan Öz (Ankara Deputy Public Prosecutor)

Date: 24 March 1978
Location: Gaziosmanpaşa, Ankara
Incident and Judicial Process: He was riddled with bullets while starting his car. The killer, İbrahim Çiftçi, was caught, confessed to the murder and was sentenced to death four times by the Military Court. However, the Military Court of Cassation Chambers Board overturned the ruling and the defendant was acquitted.
Reason for Being Targeted and Historical Report: Doğan Öz had prepared the "Contrgerilla Report" to be presented to Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit. The report contained the following statements verbatim:

"The violent incidents are not aimless. They are organized directly by contra-guerrilla elements attached to the Special Warfare Department, using MHP cadres and the security forces. The aim is to make the democratic order unworkable and to prepare the ground for a military fascist coup."
Sources: Text of Doğan Öz's Contra-Guerrilla Report (Cumhuriyet Newspaper Archive); Military Court of Cassation Reasoned Decision (Case 1983/46).

Gün Sazak (Former Minister of Customs and Monopolies, MHP Deputy Chairman)

Date: 27 May 1980
Location: Balgat, Ankara
Incident and Judicial Process: He lost his life in an armed attack carried out by Dev-Sol militants in front of his home.
Claims and Rumors: During his ministry, Sazak was the only politician to break the multibillion-dollar wheel of mafia, drug and arms smuggling at Turkey's customs gates. It has been claimed that the act was ostensibly carried out by a leftist organization, but that the logistics and intelligence were provided by international smuggling networks and their partners within the state who had lost the customs revenue.
Sources: TBMM 1995 Commission Report; Mehmet Ali Birand, 12 Eylül.

Vedat Aydın (Chairman of the İHD Diyarbakır Branch, Executive of the People's Labor Party)

Date: 5 July 1991 (Abduction) / 7 July 1991 (Discovery of the body)
Location: Diyarbakır / Maden, Elazığ
Incident and Judicial Process: At midnight, he was taken into custody by individuals with radios who came to his home and identified themselves as "political branch police." Two days later, his body was found in the Maden district of Elazığ, having been tortured to death. As a result of police opening fire on the hundreds of thousands of people attending his funeral, dozens of civilians lost their lives.
Claims and Rumors: It is JİTEM's first major unsolved operation in the region. Major Cem Ersever and confessor Abdülkadir Aygan confirmed years later that the murder was committed by JİTEM teams with the knowledge of the then-OHAL Regional Governorship.
Sources: TBMM 1995 Report on Unsolved Murders; Abdülkadir Aygan's Confessions.

Lieutenant General Eşref Bitlis (Commander General of the Gendarmerie)

Date: 17 February 1993
Location: Güvercinlik Military Airport / Yenimahalle, Ankara
Profile and Reason for Being Targeted: A respected lieutenant general who argued that the Kurdish issue could not be solved through military operations alone and who openly opposed the drug smuggling of the village guard tribes in the region and the dark logistics of the Çekiç Güç (Provide Comfort) in the region.
Incident and Judicial Process: His plane crashed minutes after takeoff; Bitlis and his team were killed. The military prosecutor's office issued a report of "icing and pilot error" and closed the case.
Claims and Rumors: It is claimed that the plane was brought down by sabotage. The fact that the plane's engine parts were hastily scrapped without being sent for examination and that the reports of İTÜ faculty members stating "icing is not possible" were removed from the file have deepened suspicions. It is accepted that Eşref Bitlis was eliminated by the Gladio/NATO wing, which wanted to prevent the peaceful Kurdish strategy he had prepared together with President Turgut Özal.
Sources: TBMM Report of the Commission to Investigate Coups and Memoranda (2012); Adnan Akfırat, Eşref Bitlis Suikastı.

Bahtiyar Aydın (Brigadier General, Lice Gendarmerie Regional Public Order Commander)

Date: 22 October 1993
Location: Lice Gendarmerie Company Command, Diyarbakır
Incident and Judicial Process: He was shot from a long distance with a sniper rifle (Kanas) while in the command's garden. Official authorities declared that there had been a PKK raid on Lice; the district was devastated by artillery and tank fire for days.
Claims and Rumors: It emerged that he was shot by hitmen within JİTEM itself because he had obstructed JİTEM's illegal extortion and drug operations. It was confirmed through the secret witness statements in the case filed that there were no PKK militants in the district at the time of the incident; however, the case was dismissed due to the statute of limitations.
Sources: Diyarbakır 6th Heavy Penal Court, Lice Case Reasoned Judgment.

Mehmet Sincar (Democracy Party - DEP Mardin MP)

Date: 4 September 1993
Location: Batman
Incident and Judicial Process: While he was part of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey delegation established to investigate on site the increasing unsolved murders in Batman, he was killed by gunfire in the street in broad daylight.
Claims and Rumors: Officially, the murder was attributed to Hezbollah. However, in the Prime Ministry Susurluk Report (Kutlu Savaş), it was explicitly written that the Sincar assassination was carried out by a state team consisting of Mahmut Yıldırım, code-named "Yeşil," Alaattin Kanat and village guards, and that their escape was coordinated via police radios.
Sources: Prime Ministry Susurluk Report (Pages 68-72); Grand National Assembly of Turkey Sincar Murder File.

Ahmet Cem Ersever (Retired Gendarmerie Major, Founder of JİTEM)

Date: 4 November 1993 (Discovery of the bodies)
Location: Elmadağ, Ankara
Incident and Judicial Process: After resigning from the Turkish Armed Forces, he began giving interviews to journalist Soner Yalçın and announced that he would disclose the dark dealings in the Southeast. In Ankara, where he had gone to testify in court, he was abducted together with his girlfriend Nevval Boz and the confessor Mustafa Deniz. Their bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs and gunshot wounds to their heads.
Claims and Rumors: It is stated that Ersever was interrogated and executed by Mahmut Yıldırım (Yeşil) and Veli Küçük's team, who feared he would expose the Eşref Bitlis sabotage and JİTEM's drug networks, and that the 30 folders of secret JİTEM archives he had with him were seized.
Sources: Prime Ministry Susurluk Report; Soner Yalçın, Binbaşı Ersever'in İtirafları.

Colonel Kazım Çillioğlu and Colonel Rıdvan Özden

Kazım Çillioğlu (Tunceli Gendarmerie Regional Commander): He was found dead in his residence in 1994. It was said that he "committed suicide." When his grave was opened in 2010, fractures were found in his skull, bruises on his ribs and a gunshot wound on his body. He was part of Eşref Bitlis's team.
Rıdvan Özden (Mardin Gendarmerie Regiment Commander): It was announced in 1995 that he had been martyred in clashes. However, his wife Tomris Özden declared that her husband had been executed by JİTEM with a bullet fired into the back of his head, not his forehead. His grave was opened and forensic examinations were carried out; conflicting autopsy reports were concealed.
Sources: Malatya Special Authority Public Prosecutor's Office File; Ergenekon Court Records.

Tahir Elçi (Diyarbakır Bar Association President, Human Rights Defender)

Date: 28 November 2015
Location: In front of the Four-Legged Minaret, Sur, Diyarbakır
Incident and Judicial Process: While he was holding a press statement for the protection of historical monuments during the trench operations, PKK members fleeing after clashing with the police entered the street, and in the ensuing clash he was killed by a single bullet to the back of his neck.
Claims and Rumors: It was determined that some of the police and MOBESE cameras at the scene were out of order and that ballistic examinations were carried out incompletely. In the scientific ballistic report prepared by the London University-based Forensic Architecture group, it was determined that the bullet that struck Elçi most likely came from the weapon of one of the police officers on the street. The police officers who were tried were acquitted in 2024.
Sources: Forensic Architecture Report (The Murder of Tahir Elçi); Diyarbakır 10th Heavy Penal Court File.

D. Businesspeople and Financial Centers (1990s "Death Lists")

On 4 November 1993, the then Prime Minister Tansu Çiller made the following historic statement in her speech at the Istanbul Holiday Inn Hotel:

"We have a list of Kurdish businesspeople who pay tribute to the PKK. We will hold them accountable."

After this speech, a process was initiated in the region known as the "Sapanca-Hendek-Bolu Death Triangle" in which businesspeople were abducted and executed.

Behçet Cantürk (Businessperson)

Date: January 14, 1994
Location: Sapanca, Sakarya
Incident and Judicial Process: He was abducted together with his driver Recep Kuzucu. Their tortured bodies were found near Sapanca.
Claims and Rumors: In the Susurluk Report, the killing of Cantürk was admitted as follows: "Although it is known that Cantürk was transferring drug revenues to the PKK, since the state could not punish him through legal means, it chose this method." It was stated in Ayhan Çarkın's confessions that the murder was carried out by Special Operations Department police officers and Abdullah Çatlı's team, and that the order was given by Police Chief Mehmet Ağar.
Sources: Prime Ministry Susurluk Report; Ayhan Çarkın's Statements (2011).

Savaş Buldan, Adnan Yıldırım, Hacı Karay

Date: June 3, 1994 (Abduction) / June 4, 1994 (Discovery of the bodies)
Location: In front of Çınar Hotel, Yeşilyurt, Istanbul / Yığılca, Bolu
Incident and Judicial Process: They were abducted by individuals wearing bulletproof vests, carrying radios and police badges. 24 hours later, their bullet-riddled bodies were found by the Melen Stream in Bolu.
Claims and Rumors: Former police officer Ayhan Çarkın, a defendant in the Susurluk case, told the prosecutor's office in detail that the execution was carried out by them and the Çatlı group, and that their money was confiscated. The "Ankara Unsolved Murders Case," filed in 2014 against Mehmet Ağar and 19 defendants, concluded in 2023 with the acquittal of all defendants.
Sources: Ankara 1st High Criminal Court (2014/162 Case No.); ECtHR Buldan v. Turkey Conviction Judgment (2004).

Ömer Lütfi Topal ("King of Casinos")

Date: July 28, 1996
Location: Yeniköy, Istanbul
Incident and Judicial Process: He was killed by being sprayed with Kalashnikov rifles in his car. Fingerprints of Special Operations police officers Ayhan Çarkın, Ercan Ersoy and Oğuz Yorulmaz were found on the silenced Uzi-brand weapons at the crime scene.
Claims and Rumors: Kemal Yazıcıoğlu, the Istanbul Police Chief of the time, detained the police officers; however, on the instruction of Interior Minister Mehmet Ağar, the officers were brought to Ankara and released. It was proven that Topal was executed because he refused to give the casino racket as tribute to the state and the mafia.
Sources: Parliamentary Susurluk Commission Report; DGM File.

Özdemir Sabancı (Businessman, Member of the Sabancı Holding Board of Directors)

Date: January 9, 1996
Location: Sabancı Center, 4th Levent, Istanbul
Incident and Judicial Process: On the 25th floor of the high-security Sabancı Towers, he was killed together with Haluk Görgün and Nilgün Hasefe by DHKP-C militants (Mustafa Duyar, İsmail Akkol and cleaning staff member Fehriye Erdal).
Claims and Rumors: Mustafa Duyar, who carried out the attack, surrendered and announced that he wanted to become an informant at Afyon Prison. However, before he could speak, he was killed in prison by the Karagümrük Gang (brothers Nuri and Vedat Ergin). Nuri Ergin's words shouted at the court panel in the courtroom, "This state had Mustafa Duyar killed for me! Ask Veli Küçük!" clearly revealed the state connection.
Sources: DGM Records; Journalist Saygı Öztürk Archive.

E. Trade Unionists, Rights Advocates and the Forcibly Disappeared

Kemal Türkler (Founding President of DİSK)

Date: July 22, 1980
Location: Merter, Istanbul
Incident and Judicial Process: He was shot in front of his home as he was getting into his car. The defendant Ünal Osmanağaoğlu was tried years later; the case was dismissed in 2010 on the grounds of the 30-year extraordinary statute of limitations.
Claims and Rumors: Days before the September 12 military coup, it is known that he was killed by right-wing gangs backed by Special Warfare in order to make martial law inevitable by eliminating the leader of the strong labor movement.
Sources: DİSK Historical Archive; Decisions of the General Criminal Assembly of the Court of Cassation.

Hasan Ocak and Fehmi Tosun (Saturday Mothers Movement)

Hasan Ocak (1995): He was taken into custody after the Gazi Events. The police denied it. 55 days later, his body, strangled with wire under torture, was found in a paupers' cemetery in the Beykoz forests. This murder initiated the "Saturday Mothers" resistance, which gathers every Saturday at Galatasaray Square.
Fehmi Tosun (1995): In front of his home in Avcılar, in front of his children's eyes, he was abducted by plainclothes police officers who put him into a vehicle with license plate 34 F 115, and he was never found again. In 2003, Turkey signed the "Friendly Settlement" text at the ECtHR, accepting the crime and agreeing to pay compensation.
Sources: ECtHR Hasan Ocak v. Turkey and Tosun v. Turkey Judgments; HRFT Report on Disappearances in Custody.

2. Unsolved Murder Mechanisms and Deep Structures

Structure / Mechanism	Area of Activity and Method	Key Names / Reports
Special Warfare Department / Gladio	Assassinating intellectuals, prosecutors and trade unions throughout the 1970s to pave the way for the 12 September coup.	Doğan Öz Report, Bülent Ecevit Confessions
JİTEM	Extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances (White Toros) and extortion in the East and Southeast under the guise of "counter-terrorism".	Cem Ersever, Mahmut Yıldırım (Yeşil), Abdülkadir Aygan, Arif Doğan
Susurluk Gang	"Death List" executions and extortion targeting Kurdish businesspeople and dissidents through Police-Special Operations-Mafia cooperation.	Kutlu Savaş Susurluk Report, Mehmet Ağar, Abdullah Çatlı, Korkut Eken
Hizbullah (Hizbul-kontra)	Machete assassinations of PKK sympathizers in the Southeast in the 1990s; "grave house" murders by hog-tying in the 2000s.	TBMM 1995 Report, Beykoz Operation (Hüseyin Velioğlu)

3. The Judicial Dimension: The Armor of Impunity and the Statute of Limitations

The common denominator of the unsolved political murders committed throughout the history of the republic in Turkey has been the "culture of impunity". Four main legal barriers have been used to operate this culture:

Extraordinary Statute of Limitations (20 and 30 Years): The case limitation periods in the Turkish Criminal Code were deliberately extended in files where state officials were tried, ensuring that the cases were dismissed (Kemal Türkler, Musa Anter, Sivas Massacre cases).
Transfer on Security Grounds: Cases were moved from the provinces where the crime was committed to provinces hundreds of kilometers away (Eskişehir, Kırıkkale, Çorum) in order to make it impossible for the victim families and lawyers to participate.
The "State Secret" Barrier: Key documents in the archives of MİT, the General Staff and the Police were not sent to the courts, and prosecutors were prevented from entering the crime scenes.
The Wave of Mass Acquittals (2019-2024): All of the JİTEM, Lice, Kulp, Dargeçit and Ankara Unsolved Murders main cases opened in the 2010s were closed with successive acquittal rulings within the last five years.

My reading

The common denominator is impunity: most of the files were closed not because the perpetrator was unknown, but because the trial was never concluded.
The legal barriers repeat: the statute of limitations, the transfer of cases to distant provinces and the withholding of documents produced the same result in different periods.
Official reports already exist: the TBMM commissions and the Susurluk report have recorded some of these structures.

Sources

Official State Reports

TBMM Research Commission Report on Unsolved Political Murders (1995): The most comprehensive parliamentary record documenting the murders of the 1990s in all their dimensions, prepared under the leadership of Commission Chairman Sadık Avundukluoğlu.
Prime Ministry Inspection Board Susurluk Report (1998): The official text prepared by Kutlu Savaş, Chairman of the Prime Ministry Inspection Board, confessing the state's extrajudicial executions and its alliance with the mafia.
TBMM Susurluk Research Commission Report (1997): The parliamentary research record prepared under the chairmanship of Mehmet Elkatmış.
TBMM Research Commission Report on Coups and Memoranda (2012): Examination of the Eşref Bitlis and 1993 assassinations.

ECtHR Conviction Rulings

Aksoy / Turkey (1996) - Torture and enforced disappearance.
Kurt / Turkey (1998) - State responsibility in cases of disappearance in custody.
Kılıç / Turkey (2000) - Failure to protect the right to life and the murders of journalists.
Musa Anter and Others / Turkey (2006) - Violation of the right to life and protection of the perpetrators.
Buldan / Turkey (2004) - Enforced disappearance and violation of the right to life.

Respected Research Works

Uğur Mumcu, Kürt Dosyası, Silah Kaçakçılığı ve Terör, Çıkmaz Sokak.
Abdülkadir Aygan, İtirafçı: Bir JİTEM'ci Anlattı, Aram Yayınları.
Soner Yalçın, Binbaşı Ersever'in İtirafları, Teşkilatın İki Silahşoru.
Ahmet Şık, Pusu: Devletin Yeni Sahipleri, Postacı Yayınevi.
Güldal Mumcu, İçimden Geçen Zaman, UM:AG Yayınları.
İHD and TİHV Periodic Human Rights Violations and Unsolved Murders Reports (1990-2026).