Posted on 12/20/2003 6:03:31 PM PST by Pan_Yans Wife
A Turkish man has admitted he received $50,000 from an Iranian source and sent it to Turkey to finance last month's suicide bomb attacks in Istanbul, a newspaper said on Saturday.
Adnan Ersoz, charged with attempting to change "the constitutional order by force of arms" on Friday, had confirmed that an international terrorist organization had given training and cash to members of a Turkish Islamist group, police said in a statement on Friday.
Police did not name the international organization. But a report in Hurriyet newspaper said he told interrogators he had breakfast with al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and one of the Istanbul suicide bombers in Afghanistan before September 11, 2001.
There they decided to attack U.S. targets in Turkey, he was reported to have said.
"I followed up the necessary financing for the attacks which I thought would be carried out against U.S. targets," the newspaper quoted Ersoz as telling his interrogators. "I sent by courier $50,000 I got from an Iranian person."
He added that another $100,000 had been discussed but it was unclear whether the money was ever obtained.
The newspaper, close to the establishment, said Ersoz regretted the four bombings on Jewish and British targets in Turkey's commercial capital that killed 61 people and wounded hundreds. Most of the dead and wounded were Turkish Muslims.
He said the original target of the attacks had been the U.S. military base at Incirlik in southern Turkey, a key supply and refueling station for U.S.-led coalition troops in Iraq.
"But for a reason I don't know, the actions were carried out in Istanbul," Ersoz said. Afterwards, he met with another now- captured alleged attack ring-leader in Iran, he said.
"We talked of how the actions had harmed Turkey and that the majority of those killed were Muslims," Ersoz said. "I didn't know it would be like this. When I learned Turks had died, I regretted it."
Police said Ersoz was detained on December 15 after they persuaded him to return to Turkey from Iran. More than 30 people have been arrested and at least 150 more questioned over the explosions.
Turkish officials and media have speculated about a possible bin Laden link with the Istanbul attacks. Bin Laden's al Qaeda network has been blamed for the attacks on U.S. cities on September 11, 2001.
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