Post by Ozge Mumcu Aybars

Hi, I have a story to tell. Most of my friends abroad know fragments of my story — about my father, Uğur Mumcu, and his assassination — because I often have to explain why our foundation carries his name. They express sympathy, yet in the context of a brief conversation, it is almost impossible for them to grasp why his assassination was not resolved properly and what Türkiye’s “deep state” really is: its actors, its hidden networks, and the profound ways it has shaped today's politics and society. In Türkiye, my personal traumatic story is also part of the nation’s political traumatic history — after Atatürk, my father became one of the most commemorated figures, with statues across the country — and yet, even today, I still meet people who, upon seeing me, burst into tears, as if carried back to that day. The 1990s in Türkiye were marked by political assassinations, many of them targeting secular intellectuals. My father was assassinated in 1993, but his trial did not begin until 2000. And even then, it was not only about him — it became part of a larger case that included the murders of other prominent public figures such as Muammer Aksoy, Ahmet Taner Kışlalı, and Bahriye Üçok. In the midst of these upheavals, Türkiye entered a new political era: in November 2002, the AKP came to power and has ruled the country ever since. But to stay with my own story: our case was eventually separated from the larger file of more than 50 dossiers, known as the Umut Case. “Umut” means “hope” in Turkish, but it also is a synonym for the long pursuit of justice for Uğur Mumcu. The separation happened because the man who placed the bomb, Oğuz Demir, was never found. After 32 years, our lawyers succeeded in calling one of the most notorious figures of the “deep state,” Mehmet Ağar, to testify as witness. He had served as both Minister of the Interior and Minister of Justice during coalition governments in 1990s, and in the 2000s he himself was prosecuted and sentenced for organized crime and corruption. He is not a man who usually appears in courtrooms. Yet, surprisingly, he came. That day, I was the only member of my family present in Ankara. Sitting in that courtroom, forced to listen to his evasive and false statements, felt like a test — a sudden flashback pulling me into old memories. At one point, he even hinted at being a “family friend,” a claim as manipulative as it was hollow. But this was never about our family versus him. It is about a society’s search for truth, and about justice that has been denied so far too long. The court has now decided to request all relevant state institutions to search for Oğuz Demir. The next hearing is scheduled for February 2026 — a date that will mark the 33rd year since my father’s assassination. This article is about what happened in that courtroom — and what it means for the larger struggle for justice in Türkiye.