ISTANBUL: A lawyer accused two of Turkey’s corporate dynasties yesterday of backing the 1997 military overthrow of its first Islamist-led government, sending their shares tumbling on fears of a deepening vendetta against the country’s secular business elite.
Shares in family-run conglomerates Dogan Holding and Koc Holding fell nearly eight percent and more than three percent respectively after lawyer Mustafa Polat filed a complaint against them in a trial of alleged plotters.
The events of 1997 were dubbed the “post-modern coup” as the generals used pressure behind the scenes to force Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan from power, in contrast to the direct intervention of three military coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980.
Polat said he had filed the complaint against Aydin Dogan and the holding company of the Koc family, which owns five of Turkey’s 10 largest companies and whose interests account for an estimated 10 percent of national output, because there was clear evidence of their opposition to Erbakan’s government.
“These are people and companies whose names appear regularly in the indictment of the case,” Polat said, adding he believed they had been in contact with a clandestine group within the military linked to the overthrow.
“The Ankara chief public prosecutor’s office will now carry out the necessary legal investigation,” he said.
The complaint against Koc and Dogan comes a day after Erdogan said he was “surprised” that corporate interests which he said had been supportive of past coup attempts in Turkey had not been held to account.
But the move came as a surprise.
“Remember the Koc group is a huge industrial concern in Turkey, accounting for something like 10 percent of GDP. The assumption was that the AKP administration would not risk killing the golden goose,” said Timothy Ash, head of emerging markets research at Standard Bank.
Koc and Dogan have been in the firing line before.
The government launched a probe into the taxes of Koc energy firms in July, weeks after criticising one of the family’s hotels for sheltering protesters during anti-government unrest over the summer.
The finance minister said there was no link to the protests.
Erdogan’s government has in the past levied heavy tax fines and seized the assets of media firms perceived to be critical of his administration.
REUTERS
