Abdi Ipekci

Abdi İpekçi (9 August 1929—1 February 1979) was a Turkish journalist, intellectual and an activist for human rights. He was assassinated while editor-in-chief of the major Turkish newspaper Milliyet.

İpekçi was born in Istanbul, Turkey. After finishing high school at Galatasaray Lisesi in 1948, he attended Law School at Istanbul University for a while. He started his professional career as a sports reporter for the newspaper Yeni Sabah, and transferred later to Yeni İstanbul. In 1954, he joined the newspaper Milliyet as its publishing manager, and was promoted to editor-in-chief in 1959.

A highly-respected journalist, he was a proponent of the separation of religion and state, and an advocate of dialogue and conciliation with Greece, as well as of human rights for the various minorities in Turkey.

On 1 February 1979, two members of the ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves, Oral Çelik and Mehmet Ali Ağca (who later shot pope John Paul II), murdered Abdi İpekçi in his car on the way back home from his office in front of his apartment building in Istanbul. Ağca was caught due to an informant and was sentenced to life in prison. After serving six months in a military prison in Istanbul, Ağca escaped with the help of the Grey Wolves and fled to Bulgaria, which was then a base of operation for the Turkish mafia.

According to reporter Lucy Komisar, Mehmet Ali Ağca had worked with Abdullah Çatlı in this 1979 assassination, who "then reportedly helped organize Ağca's escape from the prison, and some have suggested Çatlı was even involved in the Pope's assassination attempt". Ağca later became famous for his failed assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981. According to Reuters, Ağca had "escaped with suspected help from sympathizers in the security services".

Writer Çetin Altan said that a journalist colleague who was a former admiral intelligence officer of the chiefs of staff, Sezai Orkunt, had informed him that the clandestine Counter-Guerrilla carried out his assassination at the behest of the CIA's station chief in Turkey. İpekçi had learned that the counter-guerrilla were inducting civilians into a clandestine anti-Communist organization without the knowledge of the Turkish chief of staff. He knew that the counter-guerrilla were subordinate to the CIA, whose station chief at the time was Paul Henze. İpekçi thus asked Henze to stop the CIA's illegal activities.Other sources also name Henze as the instigator.

Abdi İpekçi was interred at the Zincirlikuyu Cemetery. He is survived by his wife Sibel, daughter Nükhet, and son Sedat.

he street, in which he lived and was murdered, was renamed Abdi İpekçi Street. On 1 February 2000, a statue erected by the Municipality of Şişli near the place, where he was murdered, was revealed in his commemoration. It was designed by the architect Erhan İşözen, and the 3.5 m high bronze sculpture created by Güdal Duyar stands on a 0.70 m high granite base. The memorial depicts İpekçi's bust held by one male and one female student with a dove atop symbolizing peace.

Turkey's largest multi-purpose indoor sports arena, located in Zeytinburnu, Istanbul, is also named after him.