Eşref Bitlis

Eşref Bitlis (Malatya 1933 – Ankara 17 February 1993) was a general in the Turkish Gendarmerie, who died in a controversial plane crash.

Background He was born 1933 in the eastern Anatolian city of Malatya, Turkey. He attended the Turkish Military Academy, finishing it in 1952 with the rank of lieutenant. In 1966, he graduated from the War Academy of the Army .

After completing a language course in Germany, Bitlis studied further at the Academy of the Turkish Armed Forces , graduating in 1969. Later, he was educated at the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr, the highest military academy of the German armed forces. He graduated in Germany in 1973. The Turkish Daily News later interviewed an army general who said that the commander of the Joint United States Military Mission for Aid to Turkey (JUSMMAT) had complained about Bitlis to the chief of staff for collecting information about illegal activities pertaining to Operation Provide Comfort (OPC). Such acts led Bitlis to conclude that America was intent on establishing a Kurdish state encompassing Turkey. Bitlis proposed to solve the PKK conflict by severing its logistical support. To this end, he suggested establishing relations with neighboring countries.

Death On February 17, 1993, a snowy day, Bitlis was on an official trip by plane from the Güvercinlik Army Air Base in Ankara. He switched airplanes when the pilot realized the cockpit was out of order. but this has been denied by the manufacturer and experts from Istanbul Technical University and Middle East Technical University. According to the Etimesgut Air Base Weather Department's weather report for that day, there was no ice accumulation: "Calm, windy, 1,500 meters visibility, snowy, low clouds affected. Cloud level 800 feet, peak 8,000 feet. The weather is completely overcast. The temperature is -4 degrees and the pressure is 1,018 milibars." The military prosecutor who initially investigated the incident, Col. Hasan Tüysüzoğlu, remained convinced twenty years later that the crash was due to sabotage,

Gendarmerie commander Cem Ersever, who had been in charge of the JİTEM group's southeastern operations, left the army in mid-1993. He was allegedly in contact with the PKK through the Syrian intelligence service and the American special forces. According to Arif Doğan, the plane crash was engineered by Ersever together with Mahmut Yıldırım (Yeşil).

Journalist Metin Kaplan offers a polar opposite account. Kaplan says that Ersever and Bitlis were in fact close friends, who were killed by American agents, and that Mustafa Deniz is still alive. Both Bitlis and Mumcu were investigating how Jalal Talabani, one of the Kurdish leaders of northern Iraq, came into possession of 100,000 firearms belonging to the Turkish Armed Forces. However, the Ergenekon case is still in progress, and alternative explanations have been proffered to explain Mumcu's death (such as that Ersever did do it).

He was survived by his spouse Şükran and son Tarık.

Reopening of the death case On September 30, 2010, the office of the chief public prosecutor in Ankara reopened the case relating to the death of Bitlis on the basis of some news recently published in the Turkish media.

Prosecutor Hüseyin Görüşen was tasked with the investigation to find out the cause of the 1993 plane crash. The military prosecutor at the Turkish General Staff, who was responsible for the crash investigation, had closed the file with the finding that Bitlis' airplane crash was an accident without any human involvement.

The case was due to be closed in February 2013 due to the 20-year statute of limitations, but in line with rulings from the European Court of Human Rights against statutes of limitations for murder, prosecutors said they would keep the case open. In September prosecutors issued a "permanent investigation" order.