DarkMarket_ Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You - Misha Glenny [89]
But for the last fifteen years or so successive Turkish governments have instigated a series of reforms, partly in a bid to meet the membership criteria of the European Union. Notwithstanding fears that it has a hidden extremist Islamist agenda, the new rulers from the AK Party have pushed through some of the most liberal changes in Turkish society, such as the abolition of the death penalty. In another attempt to consolidate the primacy of the rule of law, the AK Party has been weaning the country’s regular police forces away from the military.
This process has led to some remarkable and very positive changes. Parts of the civil service began to understand that their primary job was not to feather their own nests, but to provide services to ordinary people; and that an efficient Turkish state enhances its international influence and standing.
But the slow birth of a new Turkey has not been a painless process, nor has the outcome ever been predictable. It has been accompanied by a titanic political struggle in which shifting alliances between opaque forces can prove deadly for anybody who, wittingly or unwittingly, comes between them.
The main theatre of war between these forces was opened officially in 2007 with the launch of the so-called Ergenekon investigation. Ergenekon, which refers to an epic legend of ancient Turkic lore, was more recently the name of an alleged Deep State conspiracy, which saw leading military, intelligence and political figures collaborate with organised crime, journalists, lawyers and other professionals. Their supposed aim was to restrict the influence of democratically elected governments, in particular the AK Party. But according to prosecutors and pro-government media, the plot went further – the Ergenekon members were planning a military coup in 2009 to restore the power of the Deep State over the elected government.
Since 2007 police have made hundreds of arrests of senior military and intelligence figures in what are called the Ergenekon ‘waves’. But along with these, they have picked up dozens of journalists and lawyers whom they accuse of working with Ergenekon for pecuniary or ideological advantage. The small but articulate class of liberal intellectuals and the larger middle class have warned that the democratic government is resorting to the sort of intimidation usually associated with the Deep State. In a sign of the times, the Ergenekon indictment relies heavily on digital evidence – mobile-phone taps, instant messaging and computer files, demonstrating the growing cyber abilities of the domestic intelligence services.
Bilal Sen had no role to play in any of this, except that his diligence, commitment and youthful energy appeared to align him with the new Turkey rather than the old. Yet, like most Turks, he was keenly aware of the sensitive political context within which he and everyone else worked. The last thing any Turkish cop wanted was to become an innocent pawn crushed in a struggle between the Deep State and the democratically constituted government. Almost all Turks avoided public discussion of Ergenekon if they could. But all knew that the Ergenekon investigation hovered in the background of many major criminal cases, whether or not it contained overt political implications.
Bilal would have to take care, but he was not about to give up the chase.
While in Pittsburgh, he and Mularski developed a firm friendship and the FBI agent shared all the intelligence he could on Cha0. Between the two of them, they began to build on their sparse dossier. Mularski was able to call on his vast archive as one