L’Express: The key to Paris murders lies somewhere in Turkey

ANF – PARIS 09.01.2014  –  A year after the murder of Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez in Paris on 9 January 2013, the French magazine L’Express reported on the latest developments in the investigation.

The report by Eric Pelletier remarks that Turkey holds the key to the murder of three women, and that the portrait of the suspect, Ömer Güney, is becoming clearer. The magazine questions who Ömer Güney really is, and points out that; “Judge Jeanne Duyé in charge of the case on the murders, Criminal Brigade and Sub-Directorate of the Judicial Police are trying to unravel the mystery of their only suspect in the killing of three Kurdish women militants on the Lafayette Avenue in Paris on 9 January 2013. They are at least sure of one thing : Ömer Güney is not who he claimed to be the day after his arrest.”

According to the magazine, Güney portrayed himself as an idealistic sympathizer of the Kurdish cause and obsessed with the idea of finding a wife in Turkey after a disastrous marriage. “I am 100% Kurdish . The only difference with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) fighters and me is that they have a Kalashnikov and I documents. Instead of bearing arms, I carry papers” the magazine quotes Güney as saying after his arrest. Remarking that Güney, it was first thought, was a naive activist and not a spy, and moreover, suffered from a brain tumor, the magazine says “But it now appears that the man knows how to compute and is methodical. Moreover, the atmosphere of the interrogation with Jeanne Duye judge has recently hardened as the questions became more specific.”

Giving details as to what happened on January 9, L’Express reminds that Ömer Güney had gradually become an indispensable member of the Kurdish community and took advantage of his good command of French and his knowledge of the administration. It notes that Güney joined the Kurdish Association of Villiers-le-Bel (Val-d’Oise), after a long stay in Germany between 2003 and 2011.

“So much so that at the beginning of January 2013, Güney was made available to an icon of the movement, Sakine Cansiz, 54, during his stay in Paris. It was he who had driven her to the Kurdistan Information Centre at 147 Lafayette Street (Xe) where she was shot dead along with two other young activists, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez”, it underlines.

Providing further details as to what happened that day, the magazine remarks that security cameras in the area helped prove the presence of Güney inside the building at the estimated time of the killings between 12:11 and 12:56.

“Powder was found on his bag. But he emphatically denies being involved in the killing”, it notes and quotes Güney as saying that “The French state is trying to hide something by putting me in prison”.

According to the magazine, for its part, the criminal brigade was skeptical Especially because of the time the crime was speaking just days after the official launch of negotiations between Kurdish guerrillas and the Turkish government of Prime Minister Erdoğan. The magazine says “Their suspicions were reinforced by the discovery of the passport ömer Güney, hidden behind the radio console of his car: the document can trace several trips to Istanbul and Ankara in 2012, including 18 to 21 December shortly before the triple homicide.”

“A year later, the investigations do not leave much room for doubt: three converging elements support the hypothesis of a political crime. These images show that the young man went to the association in Villiers-le-Bel in the morning of January 8 and photographed 329 membership forms between 4:23 and 5:33 a.m. Two days earlier, he had already photographed accounts tracing the pattern of racketeering activity in the community”, L’Express writes.

The magazine notes that Ömer Güney’s Turkish friends in Germany, in the region of Munich, whom he met between 2003 and 2011, described him as an “idealist” and favorable to the ideas of the nationalist MHP. The magazine which interviewed Güney’s friend here quotes one among them as saying that “Ömer described the PKK and its supporters as terrorists”, and one other as saying that; “Ömer, just like me, is a right-wing Turkish proud of Turks”.

Pointing out that the investigation tightens around Ömer Güney’s usual connections in Turkey, the magazine adds that; “The police have isolated 214 calls made by a Turkish phone line in the second half of 2012. Some of them are forwarded to “atypical numbers, likened to technical numbers, whose function or origin can not be determined”. These numbers do not correspond to individual and administrative numbers list. The key to the case lies somewhere in Turkey.