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WSWS : News Analysis : Middle East : Turkey Kurdish Issues
British mercenaries planned assassination of Kurdish leader
Abdullah Ocalan
By Chris Marsden
24 August 1999
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Confidential documents leaked to the Sunday Times reveal that a
mercenary outfit with close links to the Special Air Service
(SAS) and British Intelligence offered to assassinate Kurdish
Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan.
The fee proposed by Aims Ltd, of Salisbury, Wiltshire to the
Turkish government for the assassination was £5.75 million,
according to the Sunday Times August 22 edition.
Ocalan was abducted from Kenya in February and flown to Turkey,
where a show trial in June condemned him to death by hanging.
Aims Ltd was one of two British firms that provided military
equipment and training facilities to the Turkish special forces
who captured Ocalan. The two companies were paid hundreds of
thousands of pounds for their role in preparing the ground for
his kidnap, according to the Times Insight team.
Aims Ltd made the proposal to assassinate Ocalan after it was
asked by the Turkish government in 1995 to advise on how best to
neutralise him. In a detailed 11-page proposal, the company
offered to track and pinpoint Ocalan and arrange for his murder
or kidnap. Former SAS soldiers were to be used to train a Turkish
hit squad to carry out the attack. The assassination proposal,
code-named "Melody", was presented as a simpler alternative to
kidnapping Ocalan. According to Aims Ltd, kidnapping and a public
trial would make incredible public relations and prestige for
Turkey worldwide. But [it] of course would be a much more
dangerous and complicated operation." "Having done considerable
research on this, I have come to the conclusion that, when the
operation is successfully completed, there will be an outcry
worldwide over this matter, it goes on to warn. The simplest
option, of course, is the disposal of the party in a given
area".
Noting the possibility of opposition from Turkey's neighbours,
Aims suggests that "consideration should be given to the option
of cutting off [their] water supplies".
Aims also sought advice on whether the Turkish government would
be willing to accept "civilian casualties" as part of its plan to
target Ocalan.
In the event, the Sunday Times comments, the Turks decided
against murder. Instead, with the help of the two British firms,
as well as Americans and Israelis, it embarked on a plan to
kidnap Ocalan and return him to Turkey for trial.
The newspaper also draws attention to the role played by Spire
Industries in providing equipment and intelligence to track
Ocalan's movements and spy on him.
While the Kurdish leader was staying in Damascus, Syria,
miniature cameras tracked him to the house. They watched him in
his bedroom, they even watched him in the toilet," according to a
source. Spire is an offshoot of PSI, which two years ago
allegedly supplied armoured vehicles and riot control equipment
to Indonesia that was used against student demonstrators,
according to the Times. Sources said that Aims had received at
least £123,000 for providing assistance to the Turks, while Spire
was paid as much as £650,000.
The Insight team's revelations are embarrassing for the British
government for two reasons. Firstly, they prove British
involvement in the kidnapping of Ocalan, hitherto attributed only
to the Turkish government, the CIA and the Israeli security
service Mossad. Secondly, they point to the growing use of
private security firms as an extended arm of the secret services
MI6 and MI5.
Last May, the Blair Labour government was embroiled in a scandal
over whether it had collaborated with the mercenary outfit,
Sandline International, in organising the counter-coup that
deposed the military regime of Major Johnny Paul Koroma.
Though United Nations sanctions imposed in October 1997
officially banned the supply of arms and oil products to the
country, Sandline sold £1.5 million in guns and supplies to the
deposed Kabbah government and planned a further sale worth £3.5
million. After an investigation by the Customs and Excise
Department, on April 24 Sandline International's solicitors sent
a confidential letter to Foreign Secretary Robin Cook stating
that the firm had collaborated with leading Foreign Office
personnel and Ministry of Defence officials, as well as
representatives of the US government. Attempts by the government
to deny this statement collapsed, forcing it to shift tack and
state instead that it had been correct to restore a
democratically elected president. At least 10 such mercenary
firms were said at the time to operate out of London, with
overseas contracts worth more than £100 million and over 8,000
soldiers on their books. No doubt these figure will have grown
