İzmir plot

In 1926, the Turkish police arrested dozens of people, including ex-ministers, lawmakers and governors, accused of plotting to assassinate Mustafa Kemal, the first president of Turkey, on 14 June 1926 in İzmir.

Meanwhile, they had planned to escape from the scene with Çopur Hilmi and Giritli (Cretan) Şevki, who would wait in a car on the side street, and then send them to Chios with a motor.

Historians Erik-Jan Zürcher and Raymond Kévorkian have stated that there was no plot to assassinate Kemal and the prosecution was a show trial intended to eliminate his political opponents, especially former members of the Committee of Union and Progress.

[1] After the Ottoman Empire left World War I with defeat, members of the Committee of Union and Progress, which was dissolved with the congress organized in November 1918, were divided into several groups.

[2] In January 1922, a series of activities began in Istanbul under Kara Kemal Bey's leadership to reestablish the Committee of Union and Progress.

[4] Hüseyin Cahit Bey, who published articles on behalf of a dissolved party, was sentenced to life imprisonment in Çorum on 7 May 1925, and his newspaper Tanin was closed on 16 April 1925.

[2] Chaired by Kâzım Karabekir Pasha, the party was closed on 3 June 1925 on the grounds that it "supported the revolt by referring to religious feelings.

[2][4] On the other hand, Mustafa Kemal Pasha left Ankara on 7 May 1926 and started organizing train visits to various parts of the country, arriving in Akhisar on 8 May, and later passing through Eskişehir and Afyonkarahisar and then to Konya.

[8] After İsmet Pasha showed the telegrams he received to the prosecutors and judges of the Independence Tribunal, it was decided to arrest all the deputies of the Progressive Republic Party, search their homes and send the found documents to İzmir.

[9] The İzmir police soon took action to find the individuals whose names had appeared on the telegraph in connection with the assassination plot, and first caught Ziya Hurşit Bey in the Gaffarzâde Hotel where he was staying, with the weapons and bombs he had hidden under his bed.

[13][14] The assassination attempt and the information on the perpetrators who were arrested were announced to the public on 18 June with a statement published in the Hakimiyet-i Milliye newspaper.

[19] As a result of the proceedings, the indictment put forward by the prosecutor Necip Ali Bey was prepared according to the statements of the accused who gave details about how and when the assassination attempt was planned.

[20] According to this indictment, Ziya Hurşit Bey, the Lazistan representative at the 1st Parliament of Turkey who had previously run for a seat from Ankara, Laz İsmail, who was charged with robbery, and Gürcü Yusuf were financially aided by İzmit representative Ahmet Şükrü Bey, after which they moved to Ankara and stayed at the headquarters of the Progressive Republican Party.

With the participation of Çopur Hilmi, the housekeeper of Sarı Efe Edip Bey, the group gathered first in the garden of Karşıyakalı İdris and then in the house of a biker named Giritli Şevki, to talk about their assassination plan.

[22] According to the details revealed, it was determined that the assassination was to be carried out in the Kemeraltı district of İzmir during the visit of Mustafa Kemal Pasha.

Street), giving Ziya Hurşit Bey, Gürcü Yusuf and Laz İsmail the opportunity to fire and throw bombs at Mustafa Kemal Pasha's car from the barber shop under Gaffarzâde Hotel.

He further added that they had met with the İzmit representative Ahmet Şükrü Bey to support them because they did not have money, and that they had not been able to carry out the assassination in Ankara and Bursa.

[30] Following this interrogation, the prosecutor Necip Ali Bey requested that the questioning and trials be continued in Ankara, arguing that the incident was two-faced and included the assassination plot in İzmir and the intention to create a crisis and eventually overthrow the government.

Çopur Hilmi demanded that his sentence be alleviated by stating that he considered the assassination attempt first as a service to country, but he was not a man who would ultimately get involved in such things and wanted to inform the authorities about the plan but Giritli Şevki had acted before him.

Rejecting all the charges against him, Arif Bey argued that he was not aware of the assassination meetings, that Laz İsmail did not stay in his own home and that his driver and servant made false statements about it.

Saying that he was innocent and did not interfere with anything, Abidin Bey said that he did not give away the money he was asked for and that he did not remember the conversations with Rüştü Pasha as he was sick at the time.

[40] Doctor Nâzım Bey, who was the secretary of the Committee of Union and Progress for eight months, said that he did not know what came of the donations made by the people during this period and added that he was involved in the founding of the Islamic Revolutions Society after fleeing to Crimea and later Germany after World War I.

In the indictment, it was told that the Committee of Union and Progress was a party that stripped people of their rights, that it put the country into World War I in the interests of Germany.

It further stated that the committee's ruling group had fled the country after the defeat and planned the İzmir Conspiracy with the desire to regain power after a while.

[43] Doctor Nâzım Bey stated that he supported the War of Independence and the Islamic Revolution Society, as he had helped with its establishment in Germany.

He was charged with intention to overthrow the government, plotting to kill the president and seize power, and on 31 August, the court sentenced him to death.

[45] According to the decision of the court read on 26 August, the aim of the meetings held secretly during the time of the Lausanne Conference of 1922–1923 in the house of Cavid Bey, who was trying to seize power after the War of Independence, was for former members of the Committee of Union and Progress to enter the parliament as representatives and deputies and re-establish the old community if this did not happen.

[48] Rauf Bey, who was sentenced to ten years of exile but was abroad during the decision and returned to the country on 5 July 1935, was acquitted through a statement published on 22 October 1939 by the Deputy Chairman of the Republican People's Party and Prime Minister Refik Saydam and later became a representative of Kastamonu.

[51] In the days when the announcement was made, it found its place in the printed media of the period, but it later lost its importance and the attempt failed before reaching the legal authorities.

[52] The background of the assassination attempt is explained through the eyes of the members of the Committee of Union and Progress, in the novel named Kurt Kanunu, written by Kemal Tahir in 1969.