- Playing
- Shame On Holland Again
- From
- Anton Foek
Huseyin Baybasin June 25 1956 is a Kurdish businessman and member of one of the most prominent families in south-east Turkey. He was conscripted into military service served in a special army unit. By his own account, he performed a variety of clandestine assignments for the Turkish state, such as acting as an informant and heroin trader. Baybasin was arrested in Istanbul in 1976 with 11 kilos of heroin on him.
His activities for the Turkish state came to an end in 1984 after being imprisoned in England. The Turkish government intervened and he was set free. He refused however to resume his old network of informing. Instead he became increasingly involved in Kurdish political affairs, and helped found the Kurdish parliament in exile in Brussels.
Baybasin emphatically denies ever having performed clandestine activities for the Kurdish resistance. He claims that he and other influential Kurds had urged PKK leader Öcalan to abandon the armed struggle.
His public profile in Turkey had risen steadily and he became state enemy number 2 after PKK leader Öcalan.
The Turkish state considered Baybasin a deadly enemy from the early 1990s. He claims a joint involvement with the Turkish state in the drugs trade. A former Turkish secret service employee said in a statement to Baybasin’s lawyers that his bosses had been attempting to ‘remove’ Kurdish businessmen and criminals who supported the PKK. Several Kurdish leaders were killed. Baybasin, himself once a Turkish state informant, was also in line to be murdered, according to this whistle blower and former secret agent. Baybasin did have direct contact with the PKK. This source also mentions Baybasin’s statements in the media on Turkish state involvement in the drugs trade.
Until 1996 statements about links between organized crime and the Turkish government were an absolute taboo. Then the Susurluk incident, an unhappy road accident as far as the government is concerned, happened. Underworld boss Abdullah Çatli, a leading ruling party politician, the Istanbul police chief and a top model were travelling together in a limousine. ‘Susurluk’ marked the point at which the close-knit interests of the Turkish state and organized crime were no longer taboo in Turkey. One scoop after the other of relationships between the drugs mafia and the Turkish government.
And Baybasin took great risks when he started to speak about Turkish corruption in the media long before the Susurluk incident. The Turkish secret service got involved and accused him of several criminal acts. His attorney, Adèle van der Plas, says he narrowly escaped several murder attempts by paramilitary commandos in the 1980s and 1990s. Baybasin finally disappeared from the scene in Turkey to re-emerge as an asylum seeker in the Netherlands in the 1990s.
Turkey requested Baybasin’s extradition in 1995 as a member of the PKK.
The case file consists almost entirely of telephone taps. Some 6000 of Baybasin’s telephone calls were monitored between September 1997 and March 1998. The calls were in English, Turkish and in some extremely hard-to-understand Kurdish dialects. The Court of Appeal based its conclusion that Baybasin had ordered up to two murders almost entirely on the basis of those telephone calls. Baybasin denies these allegations, and insists that the telephone calls were tampered with. Baybasin’s and his lawyers’ great frustration is that they were never given the opportunity to allow experts finally to determine whether their suspicions were justified. The Public Prosecution Service says that all the commotion over phone tapping during the Baybasin case is unfounded, because manipulation had never been demonstrated.
More from Anton Foek
Melanie Burnett or How to Make Changes in Life that Matter
(07:54)
From: Anton Foek
Melanie is a young woman of Suriname in South America who now lives in Holland and is becoming an icon and inspiration for those who want to change the course of their own ...
The Open World and its Foundation
(18:16)
From: Anton Foek
The Open World Foundation™ is about change, about you and the world. And there is a sense of urgency, an urgency for change. Almost everone on Earth can understand this. ...
Bob Nadkarni, Extraordinaire or Home in Rio
(17:08)
From: Anton Foek
Bob Nakarni is a former broadcast [ BBC and NBC among others ] correspondent, producer, cameraman and reporter who turned into an Inn Keeper in Rio de Janeiro.
Angry Black and White in South Africa
(10:38)
From: Anton Foek
Cobi is a Dutch nurse liiving and working in a South African township. She helps orphans getting over their Aids HIV stigma and against the violence and rapes, by organising ...
Distant Learning as a tool for development [ Part Two ]
(15:53)
From: Anton Foek
Prof.Stavros Xanthopoylos is the Executive Director of the on line and distant learning project at the Getulio Vargas institute in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In this exclusive ...
Distant Learning as Development tool in Brazil
(11:07)
From: Anton Foek
Prof. Stavros Xanthopoloylos is the Executive Ditector at the on-line Getulios Vargas Foundation in Rio de Janeiro Brazil. He is convinced that his methodology a key factor ...
The Shame of Holland
(06:37)
From: Anton Foek
Husseyin Baybasin is een Koerdische zakenman die, naar zeggen van zijn advocaat Mr. Adele van der Plas, al veertien jaar lang onschuldig in de Nederlandse gevangenis wordt ...
The Last Mosquito
(07:19)
From: Anton Foek
According to scientists from all over the world approximately 1 million people die of malaria every year. The world community spends billions of dollars trying to eradicate ...
The Right To Die
(24:45)
From: Anton Foek
In this audio piece the audience visits the Netherlands and listens to a way of dying in dignity. We tell the story of how the Dutch may have found an alternative for ...
Related Pieces
Piece Description
Huseyin Baybasin June 25 1956 is a Kurdish businessman and member of one of the most prominent families in south-east Turkey. He was conscripted into military service served in a special army unit. By his own account, he performed a variety of clandestine assignments for the Turkish state, such as acting as an informant and heroin trader. Baybasin was arrested in Istanbul in 1976 with 11 kilos of heroin on him.
His activities for the Turkish state came to an end in 1984 after being imprisoned in England. The Turkish government intervened and he was set free. He refused however to resume his old network of informing. Instead he became increasingly involved in Kurdish political affairs, and helped found the Kurdish parliament in exile in Brussels.
Baybasin emphatically denies ever having performed clandestine activities for the Kurdish resistance. He claims that he and other influential Kurds had urged PKK leader Öcalan to abandon the armed struggle.
His public profile in Turkey had risen steadily and he became state enemy number 2 after PKK leader Öcalan.
The Turkish state considered Baybasin a deadly enemy from the early 1990s. He claims a joint involvement with the Turkish state in the drugs trade. A former Turkish secret service employee said in a statement to Baybasin’s lawyers that his bosses had been attempting to ‘remove’ Kurdish businessmen and criminals who supported the PKK. Several Kurdish leaders were killed. Baybasin, himself once a Turkish state informant, was also in line to be murdered, according to this whistle blower and former secret agent. Baybasin did have direct contact with the PKK. This source also mentions Baybasin’s statements in the media on Turkish state involvement in the drugs trade.
Until 1996 statements about links between organized crime and the Turkish government were an absolute taboo. Then the Susurluk incident, an unhappy road accident as far as the government is concerned, happened. Underworld boss Abdullah Çatli, a leading ruling party politician, the Istanbul police chief and a top model were travelling together in a limousine. ‘Susurluk’ marked the point at which the close-knit interests of the Turkish state and organized crime were no longer taboo in Turkey. One scoop after the other of relationships between the drugs mafia and the Turkish government.
And Baybasin took great risks when he started to speak about Turkish corruption in the media long before the Susurluk incident. The Turkish secret service got involved and accused him of several criminal acts. His attorney, Adèle van der Plas, says he narrowly escaped several murder attempts by paramilitary commandos in the 1980s and 1990s. Baybasin finally disappeared from the scene in Turkey to re-emerge as an asylum seeker in the Netherlands in the 1990s.
Turkey requested Baybasin’s extradition in 1995 as a member of the PKK.
The case file consists almost entirely of telephone taps. Some 6000 of Baybasin’s telephone calls were monitored between September 1997 and March 1998. The calls were in English, Turkish and in some extremely hard-to-understand Kurdish dialects. The Court of Appeal based its conclusion that Baybasin had ordered up to two murders almost entirely on the basis of those telephone calls. Baybasin denies these allegations, and insists that the telephone calls were tampered with. Baybasin’s and his lawyers’ great frustration is that they were never given the opportunity to allow experts finally to determine whether their suspicions were justified. The Public Prosecution Service says that all the commotion over phone tapping during the Baybasin case is unfounded, because manipulation had never been demonstrated.
Additional Credits
Wim van de Pol
