Background
Muammer Aksoy was a professor of law at Ankara University, a writer and a newspaper columnist known for his writing on law and politics. Together with Bahriye Üçok he founded the Atatürkist Thought Association, which aims to defend Atatürk's intellectual legacy.
His outspoken views on secularism and the principles of the Republic often placed him at the centre of debate during the rising political and religious tensions of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
What happened
On the evening of 31 January 1990, Aksoy was shot as he was going into his home in the Bahçelievler district of Ankara and died. That night a caller phoned newspapers and news agencies and claimed the attack on behalf of the Islamic Movement.
The killing is remembered as the first in a series of assassinations of intellectuals in the early 1990s. Bahriye Üçok, Uğur Mumcu and Ahmet Taner Kışlalı were later killed in similar attacks.
The shock spread quickly through academic and professional circles in Ankara.
His death was followed within the year by a second attack on a founder of the same association, Bahriye Üçok.
Investigation and trial
For a long time after the killing the inquiry made little headway, and critics said the crime scene had not been properly secured. The file was revived by evidence and statements obtained after a raid on a Hizbullah house in Istanbul on 17 January 2000. In that framework Aksoy's murder was heard in the Umut case together with the killings of Mumcu, Üçok and Kışlalı.
The court convicted several defendants of membership of an illegal organisation and of offences linked to the killings, and the Court of Cassation later upheld the rulings. Who directed the attacks was never fully answered.
Legacy
Aksoy is remembered every year on 31 January in Ankara. The Atatürkist Thought Association and his colleagues continue to keep his name alive in the context of law and freedom of thought. The murder remains part of the wider debate over clarifying the political killings of the 1990s.
As the first killing in the series, it is often cited by historians when they trace how attacks on secular intellectuals escalated over those years.