Bahaeddin à Âakir or Bahaddin à Âakir (1874 â 17 April 1922) was an Ottoman Circassian physician, Turkish nationalist politician, and one of the architects of the Armenian genocide. Though he was not a minister or deputy in the government, he held powerful sway in the Central Committee of the Committee of Union and Progress and was the director of the à Âûrâ-yñ ÃÂmmet, a magazine that supported the party. He was one of the three important names of the "Doctors Group" in the CUP (the other two being Doctor Nâzñm and Doctor Rüsuhi Dikmen); He was a part of the pan-Turkist/Turanist wing of Union and Progress.
During World War I Ã Âakir was part of the leadership of the Special Organization. At the end of that war he was detained with other members of the CUP, first by a local Ottoman court martial and then by the British government. He was sent to Malta pending military trials for crimes against humanity, which never materialized, and was subsequently exchanged by Britain for hostages held by Turkish nationalist forces. On 17 April 1922, he was assassinated along with Cemal Azmi in Berlin.
Bahaddin à Âakir was born in Sliven, Ottoman Empire (now part of Bulgaria).
After graduating from the School of Military Medicine as a medical captain in 1894, à Âakir studied medical jurisprudence in France. In 1900, he became a judicial medical assistant at the same school. With , they became pioneers of this field of research. à Âakir was also à Âehzade Yusuf ðzzeddin's private doctor in addition to his post in the hospital. He established relations with Ahmed Rñza and the members of the Committee of Union and Progress. For this he was exiled to Erzincan. à Âakir was arrested there when authorities discovered that he sent aid to the committee and exiled him further to Trabzon. In 1905 he fled to Egypt and from there to Paris. In Paris he met Doctor Nazñm and reconnected with Ahmet Rñza. In exile he wrote articles in the à Âura-yñ ÃÂmmet.
Bahaddin à Âakir was instrumental in reviving the CUP inside the Ottoman Empire (by the turn of the 20th century it was an organization of exiled intellectuals). He secretly traveled to Constantinople set the infrastructure for a new internal center for the organization. In 1906, the Ottoman Freedom Society would be founded, which merged with the CUP in 1907 and become its internal center for revolutionary activity.
After the proclamation of the Second Constitutional Monarchy in 1908, à Âakir returned to Constantinople and to his former duty at the School of Military Medicine. He wrote Turkey's first copyrighted textbook on forensic medicine. He became a professor on the subject at Haydarpaà Âa Faculty of Medicine, which was established in 1909 with the merging of military and civilian medical schools. The following year, à Âakir was elected president of the medical school. He continued writing for the à Âura-yñ ÃÂmmet. Meanwhile, he continued his journalism by harshly criticizing his opponents in his unsigned books titled Ali Kemal Davasñ (The Case of Ali Kemal) and "Kanuni Esasimizi ðhlal Edenler" (Opponents of Our Constitution).
Bahaddin à Âakir worked as the chief physician in Adrianople's (Edirne) hospital during its siege by the Bulgarians in the First Balkan War. He was captured and then released after the city's surrender.
He was then appointed head of the political department of the secret organization called Teà Âkilât-ñ Mahsusa (Special Organization), which was established in 1913. In the same year, he was appointed to the Directorate of Forensic Medicine, which was established under the General Directorate of Health.
Bahaddin à Âakir brought up deportations as a solution to the "Armenian question" in the CUP's 1910 congress. In 1915 he was able to put his vision to the test. As the central figure of Special Organization à Âakir's organization was instrumental in enforced of the Tehcir law. For this, he has been described as "one of the architects" of the Armenian genocide. Halil Berktay writes that local governors objected to à Âakir's deportation orders and called for his arrest. Dissidents were usually replaced by Unionist hardliners; sometimes twice if the replacement was not pliant. à Âakir was involved in the subduing and deportation of the Armenian population in Ardanuç, where he was the head of the Special Organization, and Ardahan in 1914. On 3 March 1915, à Âakir sent a letter stating
Based on this letter, Turkish historian Taner Akçam concluded that the Armenian genocide must have been ordered prior to that date. In Ardanuç, à Âakir was almost killed during the Turkish counterattack in the Van.
In 1916, à Âakir and Provincial Governor Ahmed Muammer Bey issued orders to execute a labor battalion of 2,000 Turkish Armenian soldier. General Vehip Pasha was outraged by the massacre and ordered the courts-martial of Kör Nuri, the gendarmerie commander in charge of the labor battalions, and ÃÂerkez Kadir, the brigand chief who carried out the killings. Both men were hanged. Vehip attempted to have à Âakir and Muammer court-martialed. However, à Âakir escaped arrest and Muammer was transferred out of Vehip's jurisdiction.
With the Ottoman Empire's surrender, Ã Âakir fled to Berlin via Sevastopol on a German torpedo boat with Enver Pasha, Jamal Pasha, Talat Pasha and four other high ranking Unionists. In absentia he was tried by the court nicknamed the "Nemrut Mustafa Divan" and was sentenced to death for waging war and massacring Armenians. From Berlin, Ã Âakir, Cemal and Enver traveled to Moscow to get Bolshevik assistance for the Turks in their war for independence.
The journey there was troubled. Their first flight took off from the German border and crashed in the outskirts of Kaunas, Lithuania. Fortunately for the two of them they weren't recognized by journalists or the Allied forces stationed there until they were about to leave. Their return flight to Berlin also crashed. Enver's insistence to arrive to Moscow by plane costed them another plane crash in flight trials. Eventually Cemal Pasha joined them in Berlin, and using a plane that successfully passed flight tests they set off once again for Moscow. But hearing strange noises from the engine, Enver asked the pilot to turn back, and the plane disintegrated upon landing. While Enver was determined to make a grand entrance from the sky à Âakir and Cemal gave up and instead joined a Russian prisoner of war convoy heading back to their homeland. After several more bizarre mishaps Enver finally met the two of them at Moscow (he came by land in the end).
à Âakir participated in the Congress of the Peoples of the East, which was held in Baku in September 1920. He was the Baku representative of the Union of Islamic Revolutionary Societies (ðslam ðhtilal Cemiyetleri ðttihadñ). After attending the congress of the organization held in Moscow in the spring of 1921, he returned to Germany.
In the autumn of 1919, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) decided to punish the executors of the Armenian Genocide. Under Operation Nemesis, Aram Yerganian and Arshavir Shirakian were given the task to assassinate Cemal Azmi and à Âakir who were both in Berlin. On 17 April 1922, Shirakian and Yerganian encountered Azmi and à Âakir walking with their families on UhlandstraÃÂe. Shirakian managed to kill Azmi and wound à Âakir. Yerganian immediately ran after à Âakir and killed him with a shot to his head. The assassins were never detained.
à Âakir and Azmi were buried in the cemetery of à Âehitlik Mosque in Berlin.
In 1926, the Republic of Turkey granted the families of those killed in Operation Nemesis a pension fund. Bahaddin à Âakir was also included in the list accepted by the assembly, along with Talat, Azmi, Said Halim Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and his aides Süreyya and Nusret.
His life was published as a book by Hikmet ÃÂiçek in 2004 called Dr. Bahattin à Âakir: ðttihat ve TerakkiâÂÂden Teà Âkilatñ MahsusaâÂÂya Bir Türk Jakobeni (Dr. Bahattin à Âakir: a Turkish Jacobin from Union and Progress to the Special Organization).
In 2005, Kurdish-German politician brought up their "graves of honour" and Armenian genocide denial in a session of parliament.