Turkish court indicts Israeli military leaders in absentia

by: jim kouri | published: 06 03, 2012

A Turkish criminal court this week indicted four Israeli military leaders in absentia for their alleged killing of nine Turkish citizens during the Free Gaza Flotilla in 2010, a police source in Israel told the Law Enforcement Examiner. . The indictment affidavit from Istanbul prosecutor Mehmet Ekinci was given to the court last week and its approval Monday begins the trial process, even though none of the defendants will be present during the proceedings.

According to the Law Enforcement Examiner source, none of the military commanders have any plans of recognizing the Turkish court's authority over them and the Israeli government refuses to even comment on these indictments.

Relations between Turkey and Israel have been tense since Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) special forces soldiers raided the Mavi Marmara aid vessel in May 2010 to enforce a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip and killed nine Turks in clashes with activists on board the ship.

According to several reports, the activists were intent on causing a confrontation between members of Free Gaza and the Israeli authorities.

The Turkish indictment alleges that Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi who recently retired from active duty, and three senior military commanders ordered the raid on the Mavi Marmara, according to state news agency Anatolian said on its web site.

Turkey had previously said it would try to prosecute all Israelis responsible for alleged crimes committed during the raid and the prosecutor had written to the Israeli government to obtain the identities of all IDF members involved in the operation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to comply.

In June 2010, the group known as Free Gaza sponsored a flotilla from Turkey that engaged in deadly clashes with Israeli special forces troops and among the Free Gaza members were Weather Underground founders William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn as well as Jodie Evans, the leader of the radical activist organization Code Pink.

Ayers and Dohrn were close associates of President Obama during his Chicago years, while Code Pink's leader Evans was a fundraiser and financial bundler for Obama’s presidential campaign. In fact, one of Obama's fundraisers was held in the home of Ayers and Dohrn.

"Ayers' and Dohrn's continued activities appear to elude the attention of the people responsible for reporting the news without bias. These two are terrorists, plain and simple, so why would anyone be surprised to discover their connection to an anti-Semitic organization that supports terror groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda?" asks former New York Police detective Michael Snopes.

The passengers reportedly included 100-plus members of various Muslim Brotherhood chapters, at least 20 of whom taped al Qaeda-style "martyr" videos before embarking, according to terrorist expert Steve Emerson, founder of The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

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