Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm from the news site for Turkish affairs reports that Nuri Gökhan Bozkir, a former Turkish intelligence asset who was identified last year by Nordic Monitor as having smuggled arms to jihadists, blew the whistle on the Turkish government’s clandestine operations in foreign countries when he faced the risk of extradition from Ukraine to his home country.
Speaking to Ukraine’s Strana media outlet, Bozkir revealed how he was involved in moving arms and military supplies to armed groups in many countries as part of a secret operation conducted by Turkish intelligence agency MIT. Some of the arms were financed by cash provided by Qatar, he said, sharing photos and videos from his personal archive of the transportation of arms and cash.
Bozkir, a major in special operations, had been dishonorably discharged for his involvement with mafia gangs that were embedded in the Turkish security forces. Bozkir worked for Combat Search and Rescue (MAK), an elite force attached to the Special Forces Command (ÖKK) in the Turkish military.
He was convicted in a military court and sentenced to six years in a 2007 case known the “Sauna Gang,” which involved bureaucrats and politicians who were being blackmailed. He was also tried in military court for stealing classified documents from a military base. He had also been tried in civilian criminal court but was acquitted on Nov. 14, 2016 after the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intervened in the case and rewarded Bozkir for doing the dirty bidding of the intelligence agency.
Since 2007 he has been involved in moving arms to hot spots in many countries including Georgia, Iran, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Azerbaijan and Syria.
Now living in Ukraine with his wife, Bozkir is fighting the extradition request filed by the Turkish government, fearing that he will be killed if Ukrainian authorities hand him over. He decided to spill the beans on the Turkish government and its notorious intelligence agency by talking to the media. Although he tried to spin some details to create a favorable perception of himself, his statements and the evidence he shared nevertheless shed further light on how the Erdogan government has been empowering jihadists around the world.
He was enlisted by MIT as an asset long before he started doing business in Syria, where he claimed he was introduced to MIT by his Syrian partner Khalil Kharmid in 2012. The arms were procured by MIT, with Bozkir functioning as a buyer who scouted arms suppliers from Central Asia to Eastern Europe. The money was provided by Qatar and delivered to Turkey in containers on Qatari planes.
“If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed that this was possible. Seven containers full of US dollars arrived from Qatar. They were unloaded in front of me in secrecy — it was all controlled by MIT,” he told Strana, adding that he got as much money as he needed to start bidding for the next batch of arms deliveries. He had continued to purchase and deliver weapons to Syria between 2012 and 2015. The purchases were procured by the Turkish army on paper when in fact they were destined for jihadist groups.
A single shipment cost around $2-$4 million depending on the type of arms contracted, and Bozkir transported suitcases full of cash abroad under the control of MIT in order to pay the contractors. The arms were hidden under food and grocery items as was exposed in a 2015 arms trafficking case where high-grade explosive detonation cords destined for jihadists were found stashed under sacks of onions in the back of a truck.