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The New Topkapı Cemetery (Yeni Topkapı Mezarlığı) sits outside the Theodosian Walls opposite the Topkapı neighborhood in Istanbul, Turkey. It’s located in the Zeytinburnu district.
The New Topkapı Cemetery contains several plots for Turkish families, but is also the final resting place for two Prime Ministers of Turkey.
Tomb of Adnan Menderes
First, Adnan Menderes (1899-1961) served as Prime Minister from 1950 to 1960 and was one of the founders of the Democrat Party. His government was found responsible for the 1955 Istanbul Pogrom targeting the city’s Greek minority.
A coup organized on May 27, 1960, saw Menderes and all leading party members arrested and charged with violating the constitution, ordering the pogrom, and embezzlement of state funds. Menderes was put on trial on the island of Yassıada and was sentenced to death. He was hanged on the island of İmralı on September 17, 1961.
Menderes was posthumously pardoned on September 17, 1990, and his grave was moved to the New Topkapı Cemetery. He’s buried next to his Foreign Affairs Minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan who were hanged with him and also posthumously pardoned.
Tomb of Turgut Özal
The second Prime Minister buried at the New Topkapı Cemetery is Turgut Özal (1927-1993), who served as Prime Minister from 1983 to 1989 and President from 1989 to 1993. His primary goals while in office were to negotiate with the PKK and reconcile with the Kurds, and to solve the Armenian Genocide issue. Efforts on those issues were abandoned after his death.
Özal died in office of a heart attack on April 17, 1993, under suspicious circumstances, leading many to believe he was assassinated. There was no autopsy and blood samples taken after his death were lost. His body was exhumed on October 3, 2012, and found to contain 10 times the normal level of the insecticide DDT. The autopsy report on December 12, 2012, stated that although his body contained poison, the cause of death was unclear.
