A CAR crash on a Turkish highway has uncovered a brotherhood of gangsters, warlords and nationalists apparently acting with impunity as part of the state's fight against Kurdish rebels.
Crushed to death last week in a black Mercedes were a senior police chief, a right wing fugitive (wanted for the murder of seven left wingers and an attempt on the Pope's life in 1981) and a beauty queen turned hitwoman.
A fourth occupant, an MP and Kurdish chieftain, Mr Sedat Bucak, whose militia has state blessing for its battle against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was pulled clear and taken to hospital by bodyguards travelling in a second car. Witnesses say the guards left the other passengers to die. Forged registration plates, police and parliamentary ID cards were found at the scene.
On Friday the Interior Minister, Mr Mehmet Agar, resigned. He admits staying at the same resort as the victims before the crash but called it a coincidence.
"The Agar resignation is significant in that it stands as open proof of the existence of a `state within the state'," a political analyst, Bilal Cetin said.
Amnesty International last month blamed the security forces and their ultra right allies for the deaths of more than 1,000 civilians suspected of proPKK sympathies in "an unprecedented wave of extra judicial killings". The government called the report "biased" but promised reforms.
Another prominent columnist, Mehmet Ali Birand, said the state's use of mobsters and tribal leaders such as Mr Bucak has undermined the legitimacy of the fight against the PKK. "It is absolutely natural that those who govern the Turkish Republic do not want peace, as fighting the PKK lines people's pockets," he wrote in the daily Sabah.