Mehmet Ağar

Mehmet Kemal Ağar (born October 30, 1951 in Ankara, Turkey) is a Turkish former police chief, politician, government minister and leader of the Democratic Party.

Early years

Mehmet Ağar was born on October 30, 1951 at the state president's official residence Çankaya Köşkü in Ankara, where his father was serving as security. During his youth, he toured several places across the country due to his father's position as police chief.

He began his high school education in Ankara, continued in Haydarpaşa High School in Istanbul finishing in 1968. He studied finance in the School of Political Science at the University of Ankara on scholarship from the Turkish General Directorate of Security. Graduated in 1972, Mehmet Ağar became a police officer. He later served as a police inspector in the security force for the state president. In 1976, Ağar was appointed vice district governor in İznik and Selçuk. He later became district governor in Torul and Delice. In 1980, he was assigned assistant director to the counter-terrorism section of Istanbul Police. The next year, he was promoted to director of security in Istanbul. At the same time, he became chief of the Counter-Guerrilla, a clandestine stay-behind anti-communist initiative backed by NATO and the United States.

Mehmet Ağar served between 1984-1988 as the vice police chief of Istanbul. In 198, he became police chief of Ankara and in 1990 police chief in Istanbul. Following a brief service as governor of Erzurum Province between 1992–1993, he was appointed in July 1993 director general of the Turkish Security in Ankara. He formed the branch Special Forces Command within the Turkish Security and supported its co-operation with the Gendarmerie against the Kurdistan Workers' Party PKK in rural areas.

Mehmet Ağar entered politics as deputy of Elazığ from the True Path Party (DYP) following the general elections 1995.

Mehmet Ağar, married in 1974 Emel Ağar. The couple has a son Tolga and a daughter Yasemin.

Political career

Mehmet Ağar was appointed the Minister of Justice in 1996. He served later in the next government's coalition cabinet as the Minister of Interior. He resigned from this post on November 8, 1996 protesting Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan's official visit to Libya. At the 1999 general elections, Ağar run for a seat in the parliament as independent deputy from Elazığ, and received the highest number of votes an independent candidate ever achieved.

The True Path Party (DYP) lost the 2002 parliamentary elections and Tansu Çiller resigned as leader of the party and retired from politics. Mehmet Ağar was the only representative of the party elected in the 2002 election from Elazığ and entered the Turkish Grand National Assembly. After Çiller's resignation, Ağar was elected as the new president of the True Path Party.

On 5 May 2007 it was announced that DYP and the Motherland Party (ANAP) would merge to form the Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti). For that occasion, DYP renamed itself (based on the previous party of the same name), and it was planned that ANAP would join the newly founded DP.

Mehmet Agar resigned from his position as the leader of DP following the 22 July 2007 election.^[1]

Susurluk scandal

Main article: Susurluk scandal

With the Susurluk Scandal of 1996 his political carrier ended for some time. He famously said "I will talk if the state wants me to" to a commission investigating the affair. He escaped justice at the time due to his immunity, however he will be retried starting on 9 February 2009 at the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court.^[1] If he refuses to attend his hearing, he will be escorted by the police.^[2]

The Susurluk report contained the following information:^[3]

On 19 October 1984, when he was İstanbul Deputy Chief of Police, he held a meeting with ultra- nationalist activist Celal Adan.

On 3 July 1985, while serving as Public Order Branch Director at İstanbul Police HQ, he contacted owners of a company, İbrahim Aslan and Mahmut Şahin, who were followers of the Süleyman Sect, and gave them the files and other information about the investigation carried out against members of the Süleyman Sect, which should have been kept secret.

On 4 September 1986 ultra-nationalist activist Selim Kaptanoğlu declared that “they had been engaged in collecting of checks and vouchers; they had collected money from the Mafia bosses in the name of Alpaslan Türkeş; they had given part of this money to Alpaslan Türkeş and another part to the ultra-nationalist activists in the prisons; and while doing this they had been in close contact to the Deputy Chief of Police, Mehmet Ağar.”

It was determined that on 5 December 1990 he took a bribe from Kemal Kaçar from the Süleyman Sect.

He pushed for ultra-nationalists candidates to be chosen to the Police Academy in the examinations of the Academy held on 29 September 1993.

He was elected DYP Elazığ MP in the general elections held on 24 December 1995.

He was assigned the post of Minister of Justice in the cabinet of the 53rd Government (the Coalition Government of ANAP and DYP) in 1996.

He was assigned the post of Minister the of Interior in the 54th Government (the Coalition Government of REFAH and DYP) formed in the same year; and he resigned on 8 November 1996.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Mehmet Ağar to appear in court in February". Today's Zaman. 2008-12-25. http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=162246&bolum=100. Retrieved 2008-12-27. 
2. ^ "Ağar'ın Susurluk davası 9 Şubat'ta" (in Turkish). Sabah. 2008-12-25. http://arsiv.sabah.com.tr/2008/12/25//haber,52A40DA12FCB4FDA80EC2EFFAC94AC39.html. Retrieved 2008-12-28. 
3. ^ "1998 Report". Human Rights Foundation of Turkey. http://www.tihv.org.tr/tihve/data/Yayinlar/Human_Rights_Reports/Ra1998HumanRigthsReport.pdf.  (contains the Susurluk reports in English)

Party political offices
Preceded by Tansu Çiller	Leader of the True Path Party (DYP) Dec 14, 2002 – Jan 6, 2008	Succeeded by Süleyman Soylu

Persondata
Name	Agar, Mehmet
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	30 October 1951
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death