Victory Party Chairman, Ümit Özdağ, disclosed sensitive information about the bloody July 15 coup attempt in its sixth year and said that Adnan Tanrıverdi, former chief military counselor to AKP President Erdogan and founder of SADAT (a paramilitary organization), said that rehearsals regarding the withdrawal of buses and trucks were held in front of the military units beforehand and that he organized the organization on the night of July 15.

Ümit Özdağ made these striking statements to the journalist Ruhat Mengi from the Sözcü daily. Özdağ said that they came across SADAT-founder Adnan Tanrıverdi on a plane during a trip and the conversation between them was as follows:

I will tell you something about SADAT:

While I am sitting in the VIP lounge at the airport to go from Ankara to Istanbul, and we were called to the bus, the bus left for the airplane. While the guard policeman was standing next to me, Adnan Tanrıverdi approached me, I said “Hello”, he said “Hello”, then I said to him, “While you were in the Special Warfare, there was a section on “suppressing riots”, you were the head of that section, did you organize the bus, truck, etc. that was pulled in front of the military units on the night of July 15?”. He smiled, nodded in agreement, then the conversation continued, and said, “Actually, we had previous pieces of training and practices with civilians about capturing military units, but the Turkish Army heard about it and they made recounter training to prevent military units from being captured by civilians,” I said, “OMG, it’s very interesting”, then I asked, “Is the work still going on”, he said, “Yes,” he said, “I wonder if there are any armed pieces of training in this educations,” he said, “There are pieces of training on more on that including stopping the armored units.”

Ümit Özdağ’s comments came after the main opposition party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s visit to SADAT headquarter on May 13. During this visit, Kılıçdaroğlu said “this organization trains terrorists and they are now in preparation to jeopardize the security of the presidential election in 2023” and “I want everyone to know that we as CHP party will not allow this to happen.”

After Kılıçdaroğlu’s strategy and political moves, Erdogan denied ties to SADAT. But no one bought it. Because Adnan Tanrıverdi served as a chief military counselor for Erdogan till 2021. SADAT was established in 2012 and it is impossible that this could happen without the information of Erdogan. Actually, SADAT, as an organization has always been considered as Erdogan’s personal militia or a Turkish equivalent of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

But could this be only the reason that Erdogan denied his ties to this private military organization? Experts say that it is not just about SADAT and its role in July 15 coup attempt, there are also some other reasons and for that, Erdogan denied his ties to this organization. SADAT as a paramilitary organization didn’t play only a key role in the July 15 coup attempt favoring the Erdogan regime but also is used in Northern Africa, Syria, Azerbaijan, and many other cross-border operations for the interest of Ankara. All of these activities of SADAT were officially documented by the US, NATO, and other western allies.

David L. Phillips, director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, said that “the US senate works on listing SADAT and the grey wolfs (MHP) as a terrorist organization” on the podcast he joined.

This July 15 will be the sixth anniversary of the bloody coup attempt and there are still many dark sides to it. But Ümit Özdağ’s comments started changing many rhetorics from now and people began asking these questions;

1. If SADAT knew a coup was about to happen, then why didn’t the Erdogan regime stop it?
2. On the night of the coup attempt, Erdogan said, “I learned about the coup attempt from my brother-in-law”, how can this be true if his Chief Advisor Adnan Tanrıverdi and SADAT were prepared for the coup?
3. More than 250 people were killed in the coup attempt that night, and who killed these people has been a mystery until now. Doesn’t this statement of Ümit Özdağ lift the curtain?

Now, Erdogan’s official rhetoric has started to turn upside down and it has become clear that everyone knows that the Gulen Movement is innocent from the very first minute of the coup attempt. This includes the opposition parties and all these politicians supported Erdogan knowing that millions of people will be subjected to oppression and ill-treatment. Of course, SADAT and the confessions made around it will further illuminate the dark sides of the July 15 coup attempt, and we will wait and see what else will emerge over time.

Originally published at https://politurco.com on May 28, 2022.