IS member treated in Kırşehir

İlhami Balı, an IS administrator who is responsible for numerous massacres, for his part visited wounded IS members in private hospitals and conducted organisational activities while under police surveillance in 2014.

Alican Uludağ
 
Despite IS being declared a terrorist organisation by the Cabinet in 2013, it has emerged that İlhami Balı alias Ebubekir, stated to be the organisation’s person with responsibility for Turkey, and his men were able to conduct their activities without let or hindrance in Gaziantep in 2014. According to photographs that have entered the Station case file, İlhami Balı, who ordered numerous bloody acts in Turkey, made hospital visits to wounded IS people who had been brought from Syria to Gaziantep and transferred the wounded people to Mersin in 2014. Moreover, with this affair recorded by the police themselves, Balı was not apprehended while in the act. As to Edremit Türe, who is accused of organising the Station massacre, he was easily able to go to Syria while under surveillance for Al-Qaeda membership, received treatment at the university hospital in Kırşehir after he was injured and embarked on organisational activities in his home city of Kırıkkale.
 
The investigation files in Gaziantep into İlhami Balı, one of IS’s important administrators in Syria and who was wanted under a red notice with a bounty placed on his head by the Interior Ministry, have entered the Station massacre case in Ankara. The case report compiled by Gaziantep Police into Balı has also emerged in this file. According to the case report, the Gaziantep police intercepted Balı’s calls and placed him under physical surveillance between the dates of 4 June-4 November 2014. As a result, 997 sound recordings were made of Balı and 19 surveillance actions were taken. The most striking of these surveillance actions was İlhami Balı’s hospital visit to IS members who had been wounded in conflict in Syria and had been brought to Gaziantep. As such, the police were monitoring Balı’s every step in 2014. According to the technical surveillance file, İlhami Balı arranged for the transfer of the wounded IS members who were in the private Sevgi Hospital situated in Gaziantep to the Ömer Sayar Hospitial situated in Mersin’s Tarsus sub-province. The police, who were keeping Balı under technical surveillance, also conducted surveillance of the event from a technical vehicle in front of Sevgi Hospital. According to the stills that have appeared for the first time, İlhami Balı wandered around the hospital for a while and then spoke with the wounded IS members.
 
Hospital visit
 
On 12 August 2014, conversely, İlhami Balı went to the Private Primer Hospital. Balı, entering the hospital’s emergency service along with IS member Kamil Rüştü Yumuşak, spoke first to wounded IS members and then to hospital officials.
 
An operation to apprehend İlhami Balı, who had not been arrested at the hospital while in the act, and his men was ordered on 20 August 2014. According to the case report, Balı and Büyükçelebi could not be found at their homes and only Rüştü Yumuşak was captured. Balı later went to Syria where he became a border commander and organised the entry of IS sympathisers into Syria.
 
The IS attacks in Turkey also took place following Balı’s escape to Syria. Balı, having defied apprehension, organised numerous bloody acts in Syria. A total of 304 people have lost their lives since 2015, including ten police officers and one soldier, in ten suicide bombings and one bomb attack. 1,338 people have been injured, including 62 police officers and seven soldiers.
 
Balı stands charged of the following as a result of technical surveillance:
 
* Procuring members for the IS terrorist organisation and transporting them to Syrian territory
* Collecting money for IS
* Arranging treatment for wounded IS members
* Transporting vehicles into Syria
* Helping a man who had been found guilty and sentenced to prison to escape to Syria
* Bringing arms and ammunition belonging to IS into Turkey from Syria
 
Another of IS’s important administrators is Edremit Türe. Türe, a defendant in the Station massacre trial, is accused of creating the Antep structure along with Yunus Durmaz and organising the Ankara massacre. Türe, still thought to be in Syria, went to Syria and fought on behalf of Al-Qaeda before IS yet existed. Türe’s every step was monitored and his phone calls intercepted in 2012 as part of an investigation conducted by Kırıkkale Chief Prosecution. It appears from the interception records running into thousands of pages remitted to the Station file that Türe travelled unhindered around the Istanbul, Ankara and Hatay provinces conducting organisational activities, and then crossed in to Syria.
 
Türe, who was in Syria, told the person at the other end in a phone call that he made on 14 June 2012, “Well, there’s an operation business, you know. I came for an operation.” Türe, announcing that he had had an operation in his call of 22 June 2012 and saying that he would be out of hospital in eight to nine days’ time, sent a message to the “brother there.” The police added the note beneath this transcript: “It is concluded that Edremit Türe, having sustained a knee disability, had been sent by those in the conflict zone to our province for treatment and, having been operated on, will return to the conflict zone as soon as he recovers.” Despite this note, Türe returned unhindered to Syria after leaving hospital.
 
The organisational meetings that Türe held over 2012 in his home city of Kırıkkale were also monitored by the police at that time. However, neither Türe nor his people were arrested.