Topal Osman

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Topal Osman
Topal Osman
For the Eighteenth Century Ottoman Grand Vizier, see Topal Osman Pasha.

Topal Osman Agha (1883 – April 1, 1923), born in Giresun, was a colonel of the late Ottoman Empire and early Republic of Turkey, and a veteran of the 1912-1913 Balkan Wars where he became lame (Turkish: topal). He is tied to the Armenian Genocide,[1] where he led a death squad and "repeatedly bragged about his murder missions against the Armenians".[2] After World War I, he fled to Sivas before being tried in connection with the deportations and massacres and joined the Turkish revolutionaries.[3]

He published a newspaper called Gedikkaya in Giresun in 1920. Firstly he was condemned to death because of Armenian deportation. Then it was realized that he was at the front-line of the war during the deportation.

For his work in the national movement, Osman became commander of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's special "Bodyguard Regiment."[4] After strangling Trabzon deputy Ali Şükrü Bey to death on March 27, 1923, due to Şükrü's criticism of Mustafa Kemal,[5] he was killed in Ankara during an exchange of fire with the military units sent to capture him on 1923-04-01.[6] His body was later hanged in front of the Turkish Parliament[2] and he now rests in Giresun[7].

[edit] References

  1. ^ Taner Akçam. A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, p. 139. ISBN 0805079327
  2. ^ a b The Executions of Some of the Arch-perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide by the Ittihadists and Kemalists, 1915-1926 by Prof. Vahakn N. Dadrian. Published by the Zoryan Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Research.
  3. ^ Akçam. A Shameful Act, p. 297.
  4. ^ Akçam. A Shameful Act, p. 341-2.
  5. ^ Çağımızın Bir (Başka) Kahramanı, Ayşe Hür, Birikim, February 2006 (Turkish)
  6. ^ Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism. 1923 Timeline. Retrieved on 2007-03-20.
  7. ^ Teoman Alpaslan, "Topal Osman Ağa efsanesi", Kum Saati Publishing, 2007.


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