TEKIN TRIES TO DEFAME VAN PROSECUTOR IN DEFENSE STATEMENT
Today’s Zaman
Nov 19 2008
Turkey
The 15th hearing in the court case against Ergenekon, a criminal
network accused of plotting to overthrow the government, took place
yesterday, with one of the lawyers claiming that a state prosecutor who
once attempted to indict an army general was now under the protection
of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Engin Celik Kadıgul, the lawyer for former Capt. Muzaffer Tekin,
presented his client’s defense yesterday. In the statement Kadıgul
claimed that Ergenekon prosecutors had prepared the indictment
by simply "copying and pasting" information from books and Web
sites. "Things that have nothing to do with the crimes in question
have been added to this indictment. The indictment quotes people all
the time like s/he said this, s/he said that, precisely because there
is no evidence at all."
He said a 2006 shooting at the Council of State — for which Ergenekon
is under suspicion — that left a senior judge dead was a plot to
smear the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Tekin, a former captain who was
expelled from the army, was also implicated in the Council of State
attack before the Ergenekon investigation started in 2007. An Ankara
court later ruled against investigating Tekin for his alleged part
in the attack.
The lawyer said Van prosecutor Ferhat Sarıkaya, who was disbarred
for initiating an investigation into an army commander for his alleged
role in the gang that organized the 2005 bombing of a bookstore in the
southeastern township of Å~^emdinli, was part of a similar campaign
to smear the military. He claimed Sarıkaya was under protection of
the CIA and that he was living in the United States. He said Tekin’s
alleged involvement in the Council of State was not based on fact
but was based on "orders" taken by the prosecutor on the case.
Also in the defense statement, Kadıgul explained the reason that Tekin
was expelled from the military. "Muzaffer Tekin, who was working as
a training officer in Tuzla, got involved in a fight that broke out
between some students. In the ensuing investigation, Tekin refused
to reveal the names of those involved in the fight. This was why he
was expelled."
Kadıgul said the Ergenekon investigation, just like the Å~^emdinli
investigation, was an attempt to eliminate Kemalists in Turkey. "I
don’t believe that this indictment was prepared by the prosecutors,"
he said.
He also claimed that the indictment was a violation of Turkey’s Code
on Criminal Procedure (CMK) and that politics was overruling law in
the courtroom. "There are things in the indictment that were made to
look like they exist, even though they don’t. That’s falsification
of a document."
The Ä°stanbul 13th High Criminal Court is hearing the case in a
makeshift courtroom inside Silivri Prison near Ä°stanbul. Among the
86 suspects are retired Gen. Veli Kucuk and lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz,
who is known for filing lawsuits against intellectuals over writings
that question or criticize the state line on issues such as Armenian
allegations of genocide. Forty-six of the suspects are in custody,
and the rest have been released pending the outcome of the trial.
The existence of Ergenekon has long been suspected, but the current
investigation into the group began only in 2007, when a house in
Ä°stanbul’s Umraniye district that was being used as an arms depot
was discovered by police.
The Ergenekon indictment, made public in July, claims that the
Ergenekon network is behind a series of political assassinations
carried out over the past two decades for the ultimate purpose of
triggering a military coup and taking over the government. The victims
include secularist journalist Ugur Mumcu, long believed to have been
assassinated by Islamic extremists in 1993; the head of a business
conglomerate, Ozdemir Sabancı, who was shot dead by militants of the
extreme-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C)
in his high-security office in 1996; and secularist academic Necip
Hablemitoglu, who was also believed to have been killed by Islamic
extremists in 2002.
Suspects face various charges, including "membership in an armed
terrorist group," "attempting to destroy the government," "inciting
people to rebel against the Republic of Turkey" and other similar
crimes.
Meanwhile, retired noncommissioned officer Mahmut Ozturk, arrested
last June as part of the Ergenekon investigation, was released by the
court during yesterday’s hearing. This is the court’s first release
ruling during the trial, which started on Oct. 20.
–Boundary_(ID_vM5po/2FzFBZPOZaSylxJQ)–