Did that journalist commit perjury?

On the evening of January 26, 2022, in a television program, Erdoğan announced that Nuri Gökhan Bozkır, one of the suspects in the 2002 assassination of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Necip Hablemitoğlu, had been captured in Ukraine and brought to Turkey, emphasizing that this was proof of their determination to shed light on past unsolved murders.

Nuri Gökhan Bozkır and other defendants began to be tried starting in 2023. However, not only has this unsolved murder still not been clarified, but it has become even more inextricable.

Returning to Bozkır's being brought to Turkey; two days after Erdoğan's statement, the pro-government newspaper Sabah published an interview with Bozkır that was stated to have been conducted "some time before his capture." The journalist who conducted the interview was Abdurrahman Şimşek, Sabah's News Coordinator. The report stated that Nuri Gökhan Bozkır explained which names were involved in the murder.

The importance of the interview was that, although the impression was given that it had been conducted a short time ago, it had actually been conducted 2 years earlier, on February 20, 2020, but for some reason, it was not published until Bozkır was captured. The characteristic of 2020 was that there was a confidentiality order on the investigation. Furthermore, at that date, neither were all the suspects known, nor had the HTS/base station records been entered into the file.

During a session of the Hablemitoğlu assassination trial, when Nuri Gökhan Bozkır claimed, "In February 2020, Abdurrahman Şimşek came to me. He had information from the investigation file in his hand. He showed it to me," that interview gained even more importance, and both the defense attorneys and Ersan Barkın, the attorney for the Hablemitoğlu family, requested that Abdurrahman Şimşek be heard as a witness.

He Took an Oath in Court and Explained These Things

The court accepted this, and Şimşek was heard at the hearing on March 4.

After taking an oath to "tell the truth," Şimşek summarized that he possessed information he had obtained from open sources regarding the Hablemitoğlu assassination, that he had prepared the report he made in 2017 with information he received from Prosecutor Necip Cem İşçimen, who was conducting the investigation at that time, that he had the documents of the 2002 investigation with him when he went to Ukraine, and that he had published everything Bozkır told him in the interview in the newspaper.

The first contradiction that emerged with the questions posed was the date of the interview conducted with Bozkır. Şimşek said, "I don't remember exactly. It was published in the newspaper. I must have gone 1 week, 10 days before that." However, Nuri Gökhan Bozkır insistently gave the date of February 20, 2020. Upon this, Şimşek, who searched for his flight information on his mobile phone for a long time but could not find it, ultimately stated that it could have been February 20, 2020.

When asked why he did not publish this interview for 2 years, he stated that he "waited so as not to violate the confidentiality of the investigation and to investigate what Bozkır said." When Attorney Ersan Barkın reminded him that there was also a confidentiality order on the file at the time the interview was published, he said, "It had come to the public agenda; we published it because I evaluated that there was now a public interest."

As for the answers Şimşek gave to questions regarding the content of the interview he conducted with Nuri Gökhan Bozkır, which he stated he recorded on camera; he provided the following information in summary:

"He stated that he knew Levent Göktaş and helped him go abroad... He said that Tarkan Mumcuoğlu was in contact with Hablemitoğlu under a code name... He explained all the names one by one very comfortably... I did not suggest any names to Bozkır."

Anything else?

Zafer Ergün, who prepared the indictment and is also the prosecutor of the trial, asked, "Well, did he ever mention our other defendants, Mustafa Özcan and Enver Altaylı, to you in that meeting?"

Şimşek gave the following response:

"Yes. He mentioned them too. There is another name in the file as a defendant. One of those who trade in weapons. An old man. [Referring to Aydın Köstem] He knew that Levent Göktaş, Enver Altaylı, and Mustafa Özcan were meeting at that time. I don't remember exactly if he said they met before and after the murder, but he had said that they were together before the murder."

Upon this, Nuri Gökhan Bozkır shouted, "Completely a lie!" and said that he did not know Mustafa Özcan, that Abdurrahman Şimşek gave him the name Aydın Köstem, that he even mentioned Köstem's son, and that he heard the name Mehmet Narin from him for the first time.

Şimşek, who denied Bozkır's claims, explained that he gave the names Enver Altaylı and Mustafa Özcan off the record (on the condition that they would not be published).

Following the discussions in question, Bozkır asked Şimşek to "swear on his mother." Şimşek also swore on his mother.

He Practically Summarized the Indictment That Would Come Out 2 Years Later

A very large part of what Abdurrahman Şimşek conveyed as what Bozkır told him "off the record" in 2020 was actually like a repetition of the indictment that was written about 2 years later, in November 2022.

Naturally, the defense attorneys asked Şimşek the following questions:

"Did you have any meetings with Prosecutor Zafer Ergün during this 3-year period? Did you meet with the prosecutor before going to Ukraine? Did you share this information with the prosecutor's office in any way after returning from Ukraine?"

Şimşek, who answered "No" to all of the questions in question, said that he only paid a courtesy visit to Prosecutor Zafer Ergün once and did not receive any information from him.

Şimşek had stated at the beginning of the hearing that he had published everything Nuri Gökhan Bozkır told him in the newspaper report; let's see if this is true or not.

In the later hours of the hearing, the defense attorneys asked the following again, and Şimşek answered as follows:

Question: Did you reflect the entirety of this recording in the report in your newspaper?

Şimşek: I did not.

Question: Why didn't you reflect it?

Şimşek: Because I didn't think most of it had anything to do with reality, so I didn't publish it.

Question: Did these remain secret until today, did they stay with you?

Şimşek: I mean, I didn't do anything with anyone. It should be on my old computer. I mean, what am I going to do. I used it in the form I used in the newspaper. They even said, 'let's use this on television,' and the television management didn't look upon it warmly, frankly.

What Is in the 1 Hour 17 Minute Interview?

Upon these contradictions, the defense attorneys, who did not let the matter go, requested that the recording of this interview that Abdurrahman Şimşek conducted with Nuri Gökhan Bozkır on February 20, 2020, be brought, and the court accepted the request and decided that the interview be requested.

Somehow, the Sabah newspaper sent it, and the court gave the recording of that interview to the parties after the hearings held on July 16-17.

What is in the 1 hour 17 minute interview, how true is what Abdurrahman Şimşek told in court, and especially was the interview in question, which was not published until Nuri Gökhan Bozkır was captured and brought, shared with any judicial authority upon returning from Ukraine; let's tell these tomorrow as well.