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a_Turk, I also posted a link to Bin Laden Gate does that mean I am the member known as Beno who posted that article as well? All those links I found on Free Republic and the Bin Laden in Turkey Twice story is from a Turkish newspaper.

Now back to the subject of this story. Bulgaria (and maybe Turkey).

Look at this connection that I found. I find it curious that the chairman of ALARKO, a company that is in the pipeline building business was assasinated just after his meeting with Bulgaria's Deputy Premier!

Jewish-Turkish Tycoon Stabbed to Death

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - The chairman of one of Turkey's largest business holdings and a prominent member of its Jewish community was found stabbed to death Saturday, police said.

Garih headed the ALARKO group, a heating, ventilating and air conditioning company that also does construction in Turkey and central Asia.

Garih had left his office around noon Saturday after meeting with Bulgaria's Deputy Premier Nikolay Vassilev, said Seyit Mehmet Buruk, a spokesman for ALARKO.

``His assassination stunned us,'' the Anatolia news agency quoted Vassilev as saying at a news conference. ``We had our picture taken together. But I could not imagine that (his life) would have been over a few hours later.'' Cash and credit cards were found in his wallet, an unconfirmed news report said.

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I also found it curious that the Turkish authorities tried to blame the killing on a patsy Turk police release boy suspected of tycoon murder

Turkish police have released a 13-year-old boy from detention after arresting him on suspicion of killing leading Turkish-born Jewish businessman Uzeyir Garih, state-run Anatolian news agency said on Monday. Garih, an outspoken liberal, was found stabbed to death on August 25 in an Istanbul graveyard.

The agency quoted the teenager as saying that police forced him to confess to the murder by making him take off his shirt and trousers and putting him into a cold room. "They [police] brought me to an air-conditioned freezing place.... They told me that I should tell the truth that I had done it or otherwise they would cut off my head.

"I swore to them I had not done it," he said.

The boy said Garih had given him and a friend 200,000 Turkish lira ($0.14) outside the cemetery and they had not seen him again. Anatolian said a police search of the graveyard on Sunday turned up a sack with the word "Allah" (God) spelled out in blood.

Garih was the co-chairman of Alarko Holding, a major construction group active in Turkey, Russia and Central Asia.

Reuters

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Later on Turkish authorities arrested another suspect The suspect is a Turkish soldier who fled from his unit. Garih's blood was found on the suspect's shirt, left behind on his military base. It was not readily apparent to police whether the murder was nationalistically or criminally motivated.

The soldier, 26-year-old Yener Yermez, was released from prison in December last year after serving a sentence for manslaughter and robbery. Police say they found Garih's blood on a T-shirt belonging to Yermez taken from the barracks where he was doing compulsory military service. Opposition politicians and media have blamed Garih's killing on the amnesty, pushed through parliament by the government last year, which has seen some 35,000 prisoners freed. Muhammed Tokcan, another prisoner freed in the amnesty, led a band of gunmen who stormed a luxury Istanbul hotel this year and held 120 staff and guests hostage for 12 hours to protest Russia's actions in Chechnya.

But during the trial of murder suspect Yener Yermez, suspicion that Yermez may have been also been a patsy for the crime came up:

NO EVIDENCES COULD BE FOUND ON THE KNIFE

ANADOLU AGENCY NEWS 07 SEPTEMBER 2001 Friday

Neither the blood of businessman Uzeyir Garih, nor the finger prints of suspect Yener Yermez could be found on the knife which Yermez said he used to kill Garih. Experts said, ''the finger prints can be erased, but the blood prints had to be on the knife.''

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Intriguing isn't it?