Mehmet Kemal Ağar is a Turkish

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

 former police chief, politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

, government minister and leader of the Democratic Party.

Early years

Mehmet Ağar was born on October 30, 1951 at the state president

President of Turkey

The President of Turkey is the head of state of the Republic of Turkey. The presidency is largely a ceremonial office but has some important functions...

's official residence Çankaya Köşkü

Çankaya Köskü

Çankaya Köşkü or Çankaya Köşk is the official residence of the President of Turkey. It is located in the Çankaya district of Ankara, which lends its name to the palace. The name is sometimes used as a metonymy for the current president. The Çankaya Presidential Compound stretches over of land...

 in Ankara, where his father was serving as security. During his youth, he toured several places across the country due to his father's position as police chief.

He began his high school education in Ankara, continued in Haydarpaşa High School in Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

 finishing in 1968. He studied finance in the School of Political Science at the University of Ankara on scholarship from the Turkish General Directorate of Security

General Directorate of Security

The General Directorate of Security are the civilian police force responsible for law enforcement in Turkey.-Structure:In the provinces, it operates under the command of governors and district governors . Civil administrators are responsible for the security and wellbeing of towns and districts...

. Graduated in 1972, Mehmet Ağar became a police officer. He later served as a police inspector in the security force for the state president.
In 1976, Ağar was appointed vice district governor

Kaymakam

Qaim Maqam or Qaimaqam or Kaymakam is the title used for the governor of a provincial district in the Republic of Turkey, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and in Lebanon; additionally, it was a title used for roughly the same official position in the Ottoman...

 in İznik

Iznik

İznik is a city in Turkey which is primarily known as the site of the First and Second Councils of Nicaea, the first and seventh Ecumenical councils in the early history of the Church, the Nicene Creed, and as the capital city of the Empire of Nicaea...

 and Selçuk

Selçuk

Selçuk is the central town of Selçuk district, İzmir Province in Turkey, 2 km northeast of Ephesus.Its original Greek name, Agios Theológos referred to John the Theologian. Under the Ottoman Empire, it was known as Ayasoluk...

. He later became district governor in Torul

Torul

Torul is a town and district of Gümüşhane Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. According to the 2010 census, population of the district is 12,385 of which 4,421 live in the town of Torul. The district covers an area of , and the town lies at an elevation of .-External links:* * * *...

 and Delice

Delice

Delice is a town and district of Kırıkkale Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. According to 2000 census, population of the district is 31,042 of which 10,512 live in the town of Delice.-External links:...

. In 1980, he was assigned assistant director to the counter-terrorism

Counter-terrorism

Counter-terrorism is the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and corporations adopt to prevent or in response to terrorist threats and/or acts, both real and imputed.The tactic of terrorism is available to insurgents and governments...

 section of Istanbul Police. The next year, he was promoted to director of security in Istanbul. At the same time, he became chief of the Counter-Guerrilla

Counter-Guerrilla

Counter-Guerrilla is the Turkish branch of Operation Gladio, a clandestine stay-behind anti-communist initiative backed by the United States as an expression of the Truman Doctrine. The founding goal of the operation was to erect a guerrilla force capable of countering a possible Soviet invasion...

, a clandestine stay-behind

Stay-behind

In a stay-behind operation, a country places secret operatives or organisations in its own territory, for use in the event that the territory is overrun by an enemy. If this occurs, the operatives would then form the basis of a resistance movement, or would act as spies from behind enemy lines...

 anti-communist

Anti-communism

Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...

 initiative backed by NATO and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Mehmet Ağar served between 1984-1988 as the vice police chief of Istanbul. In 198, he became police chief of Ankara and in 1990 police chief in Istanbul. Following a brief service as governor of Erzurum Province

Erzurum Province

Erzurum Province is a Province of Turkey, in the Eastern Anatolia Region of the country. It is bordered by the provinces of Kars and Ağrı to the east, Muş and Bingöl to the south, Erzincan and Bayburt to the west, Rize and Artvin to the north and Ardahan to the northeast. The provincial capital is...

 between 1992–1993, he was appointed in July 1993 director general of the Turkish Security in Ankara. He formed the branch Special Forces Command within the Turkish Security and supported its co-operation with the Gendarmerie against the Kurdistan Workers' Party

Kurdistan Workers' Party

The Kurdistan Workers' Party , commonly known as PKK, also known as KGK and formerly known as KADEK or KONGRA-GEL , is a Kurdish organization which has since 1984 been fighting an armed struggle against the Turkish state for an autonomous Kurdistan and greater cultural and political rights...

 PKK in rural areas.

Mehmet Ağar entered politics as deputy of Elazığ

Elazig

Elâzığ is a city in Eastern Anatolia, Turkey and the seat of Elâzığ Province. It has a population of331,479 according to the 2010 census, and the plain on which the city extends has an altitude of 1067 metres....

 from the True Path Party

True Path Party

The Democratic Party , abbreviated to DP, is a centre-right, conservative Turkish political party, established by Suleyman Demirel in 1983 as the Right Path Party...

 (DYP) following the general elections 1995

Turkish general election, 1995

Turkey's 13th general election was held on Sunday December 24, 1995, triggered after the newly reformed Republican People's Party withdrew from a coalition with the True Path Party...

.

Mehmet Ağar, married in 1974 Emel Ağar. The couple has a son Tolga and a daughter Yasemin.

Political career

Mehmet Ağar was appointed the Minister of Justice in 1996. He served later in the next government's coalition cabinet as the Minister of Interior. He resigned from this post on November 8, 1996 protesting Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan

Necmettin Erbakan

Necmettin Erbakan was a Turkish engineer, academic, politician , who was the Prime Minister of Turkey from 1996 until 1997. He was Turkey's first Islamist Prime Minister...

's official visit to Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

. At the 1999 general elections

Turkish general election, 1999

Turkey's 14th general election was held on Sunday April 18, 1999 and was the first election in Turkish history to combine local, council and parliamentary elections on the same day. Bülent Ecevit's Democratic Left Party , soaring in popularity after the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan,...

, Ağar run for a seat in the parliament as independent deputy from Elazığ, and received the highest number of votes an independent candidate ever achieved.

The True Path Party (DYP) lost the 2002 parliamentary elections

Turkish general election, 2002

Turkey's 15th general election was held on November 3, 2002 following the collapse of the DSP-MHP-ANAP coalition led by Bülent Ecevit. It was won by the Justice and Development Party , led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, producing a crushing majority in spite of their winning just 34.3% of the national vote...

 and Tansu Çiller

Tansu Çiller

Tansu Penbe Çiller is a Turkish economist and politician. She was Turkey's first and only female Prime Minister.- Early career :She is the daughter of a Turkish governor of Bilecik province during the 1950s. She graduated from the School of Economics at Robert College after finishing the American...

 resigned as leader of the party and retired from politics. Mehmet Ağar was the only representative of the party elected in the 2002 election from Elazığ and entered the Turkish Grand National Assembly. After Çiller's resignation, Ağar was elected as the new president of the True Path Party.

On 5 May 2007 it was announced that DYP and the Motherland Party

Motherland Party (Turkey)

The Motherland Party, was a political party in Turkey. It was founded in 1983 by Turgut Özal. It was merged to Democratic Party in October 2009...

 (ANAP) would merge to form the Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti). For that occasion, DYP renamed itself (based on the previous party of the same name), and it was planned that ANAP would join the newly founded DP.

Mehmet Agar resigned from his position as the leader of DP following the 22 July 2007 election

Turkish general election, 2007

Turkey's 16th general election was held on July 22, 2007 and resulted in a resounding victory for the incumbent Justice and Development Party...

.

Susurluk scandal

With the Susurluk Scandal of 1996 his political carrier ended for some time. He famously said "I will talk if the state

Deep state

The Deep state is alleged to be a group of influential anti-democratic coalitions within the Turkish political system, composed of high-level elements within the intelligence services , Turkish military, security, judiciary, and mafia. The notion of deep state is similar to that of a "state within...

wants me to" to a commission investigating the affair. He escaped justice at the time due to his immunity, however he will be retried starting on 9 February 2009 at the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court. If he refuses to attend his hearing, he will be escorted by the police.

The Susurluk report contained the following information:

On 19 October 1984, when he was İstanbul Deputy Chief of Police, he held a meeting with ultra-
nationalist activist Celal Adan.

On 3 July 1985, while serving as Public Order Branch Director at İstanbul Police HQ, he contacted
owners of a company, İbrahim Aslan and Mahmut Şahin, who were followers of the Süleyman Sect,
and gave them the files and other information about the investigation carried out against members of
the Süleyman Sect, which should have been kept secret.

On 4 September 1986 ultra-nationalist activist Selim Kaptanoğlu declared that “they had been
engaged in collecting of checks and vouchers; they had collected money from the Mafia bosses in
the name of Alpaslan Türkeş; they had given part of this money to Alpaslan Türkeş and another part
to the ultra-nationalist activists in the prisons; and while doing this they had been in close contact to the Deputy Chief of Police, Mehmet Ağar.”

It was determined that on 5 December 1990 he took a bribe from Kemal Kaçar from the Süleyman
Sect.

He pushed for ultra-nationalists candidates to be chosen to the Police Academy in the examinations
of the Academy held on 29 September 1993.

He was elected DYP Elazığ MP in the general elections held on 24 December 1995.

He was assigned the post of Minister of Justice in the cabinet of the 53rd Government (the Coalition
Government of ANAP and DYP) in 1996.

He was assigned the post of Minister the of Interior in the 54th Government (the Coalition
Government of REFAH and DYP) formed in the same year; and he resigned on 8 November 1996.