Ugur Mumcu
| Uğur Mumcu | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
22 August 1942 Kırşehir |
| Died | 24 January 1993 (aged 50) Ankara |
| Notable credit(s) | editorial opinion columnist and investigative journalist in Cumhuriyet |
Uğur Mumcu (pronounced [uɰuɾ ˈmumdʒu]; 22 August 1942 – 24 January 1993) was a Turkish investigative journalist for the leading daily Cumhuriyet. He was assassinated by a bomb placed in his car outside his home.
Uğur Mumcu was born the third of four siblings in Kırşehir. He went to school in Ankara and in 1961 attended School of Law at Ankara University. Graduating in 1965 he initially began his career practicing law. In 1969 he ended his legal career to return to his alma mater; working as a teaching assistant until 1972.
He started to write during university, first in the magazine Yön and then in several other leftist periodicals. Between 1968 and 1970, he wrote articles on politics for the newspapers Akşam, Cumhuriyet and Milliyet.
Arrested shortly after the 1971 military coup, he was tortured. Later, Mumcu wrote that his torturers had told him: "We are the Counter-Guerrilla. Even the President of the Republic cannot touch us."
In 1974, Uğur Mumcu started a career as a columnist, with the periodical Yeni Ortam and from 1975 on, in the daily Cumhuriyet, which he continued until his death.
Uğur Mumcu published books on current and historical political issues of Turkey. He was investigating the Kurdistan Workers' Party's ties with the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) at the time of his assassination.
Shortly before his death, Mumcu was investigating how 100,000 firearms owned by the Turkish Armed Forces had ended up in the possession of Jalal Talabani, one of the Kurdish leaders of northern Iraq and, as of 2008, president of Iraq. Twenty-five days after the death of Mumcu, General Eşref Bitlis, who had been investigating the same issue, died in a plane crash, believed to be due to sabotage. In his 8 January Cumhuriyet article, titled Ültimatom, Mumcu emphatically stated that he would soon reveal in a new book the ties between Kurdish nationalists and some intelligence organizations (i.e., Abdullah Öcalan and the National Intelligence Organization).
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