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Turkey Denies Ordering List of IDF Navy Commandos

September 26, 2011

Turkey has officially denied involvement in gathering a list of 174 names of Israeli personnel – mostly navy commandos – involved in the May 2010 clash on the Mavi Marmara flotilla vessel.

Istanbul Deputy Public Prosecutor Ates Hasan Sozen denied in a statement to the Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman asking the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) to identify IDF soldiers and commanders involved in the raid. Sozen said the list was prepared by the IHH organization that owned the Mavi Marmara, and had been allegedly prepared using a Facebook search.

“No state institution had such a request, nor does it have any information on this,” he said. “The prosecutor conducting the investigation has given no such order.” He added that IHH lawyer Ugur Yildirim submitted the list Monday morning, the same day the list was published in a Turkish daily.

The report published earlier in the day in the Turkish Sabah daily newspaper said the MIT had gathered information on the identities of the IDF commandos involved in killing nine Turkish terror activists on the vessel.

According to the report, the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office had written to Israel demanding the full names and residential addresses of the military and government officials who gave the orders to attack the Mavi Marmara, and those who carried out those orders. Israel refused to comply, the newspaper reported, hence the prosecutor’s request to MIT.

“Almost all of the soldiers who took part in the killing of nine Turks and the wounding of 30 others have been identified,” the paper claimed.

Legal steps have already been taken to protect those who were involved in the operation, according to the IDF.

The Mavi Marmara was one of six ships allegedly intent on bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Free Gaza movement used the sea for the operation as a means to breaking Israel’s blockade of the region. It was later found that the Mavi Mamarma was carrying no humanitarian aid whatsoever, and many of its passengers were armed and looking to initiate a confrontation. The flotilla ignored repeated calls by Israel’s navy to change course and head to Ashdod port, where their aid supplies would be debarked, inspected and transferred to Gaza through an overland route. Instead, IDF commandos were forced to board the vessels to ensure they did not reach Gaza — and on the Mavi Marmara, the soldiers were viciously attacked by terror activists with deadly weapons.

The United Nations’ Palmer Report concluded in its findings earlier this month that Israel’s blockade of Gaza is “legal and appropriate” given the constant efforts by the region’s ruling Hamas terrorist organization, and others, to smuggle in arms and ordnance with which to attack Israeli citizens.

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