No other suspects found in the Hablemitoğlu assassination!..

In January 2022, while announcing that former captain Nuri Gökhan Bozkır, a suspect in the assassination of academic and author Assoc. Prof. Necip Hablemitoğlu, had been brought to Turkey from Ukraine, Erdoğan emphasized that this was proof of their determination to shed light on past unsolved murders.

It is not a small matter; one of the most significant unsolved political murders committed during the AKP era, which has now left 22.5 years behind, was finally being brought to light!..

According to the prepared indictment, Hablemitoğlu was killed by a group of officers from the Special Forces Command (ÖKK), led by retired colonel Levent Göktaş, at the instigation of “FETÖ”. The triggerman was Tarkan Mumcuoğlu, who was in the ÖKK at the time and began working for the MIT after retiring.

When the trial began at the Ankara 28th High Criminal Court in February 2023, it emerged that what was written in the indictment and what had been told to the public was not entirely accurate.

When the lawyers for Tarkan Mumcuoğlu, who was labeled the “triggerman,” proved with witnesses and documents that Mumcuoğlu was on duty in Kazakhstan on the day of the murder, the Court decided to release all defendants 3 months later. It did not stop there; it decided to file a criminal complaint with the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, stating that “since it is understood that the perpetrator who pulled the trigger may not be the defendant Tarkan Mumcuoğlu, the identity of the actual perpetrator who pulled the trigger in the incident, and their connection to the defendants in the file and other individuals, if any, should be determined.”

Before we get to the fate of that criminal complaint, let us recall this detail: While the court prosecutor took the stand during the first week of the hearings, the trial process was subsequently conducted by Prosecutor Zafer Ergün, who also prepared the indictment, a procedure rarely seen in our judicial system.

Returning to the criminal complaint regarding “finding the actual perpetrator who pulled the trigger”; following this decision, Ersan Barkın, the lawyer for the Hablemitoğlu family, filed a request for the recusal of the judge on the grounds that the court panel had “prejudged the case.” A week later, the presiding judge and one member were reassigned. The criminal complaint, however, concluded 7 months later with a “decision of non-prosecution.” The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, which practically lectured the Court in its non-prosecution decision by stating that “the trial should be conducted in accordance with the evidence identified in the indictment regarding the defendants and the evidence to be identified during the trial,” also claimed through this criminal complaint that “there was an attempt to drag out the case.”

The signature at the bottom of the decision belonged to the indictment and trial prosecutor, Zafer Ergün!..

THESE ALSO HAPPENED

Other remarkable developments occurred during the trial process. To summarize;

It was observed that the prosecutor shared information and documents in the file with certain journalists, violating the confidentiality of the investigation...

It was understood that the footage of the conference Hablemitoğlu gave in Eskişehir on December 14, 2002, four days before he was murdered, was not in the file. The footage from the Migros where he shopped just before he was murdered could also not be found for a long time. As a result of the persistent efforts of the defense lawyers, it was understood that both sets of footage were in the Judicial Deposit...

After the footage was finally found and put together, it was given to an expert witness and asked whether there was any similarity between the defendants and the people thought to have followed Hablemitoğlu in Eskişehir and at Migros. From the footage, which the expert stated was quite “blurry,” they marked three people thought to have followed Hablemitoğlu at Migros and those among the attendees of the conference in Eskişehir who “showed a resemblance in appearance.” Afterward, they reported that there was no similarity between the people in the footage and the defendants...

Even though Ferhat Ünlü from Sabah wrote back in 2019 that the so-called “blurry” footage had been sent to the USA and clarified, Prosecutor Zafer Ergün argued that there was no enhanced footage in the file. However, as a result of the research conducted by the defense lawyers in the judicial deposit records, it was revealed that the Migros footage was sent to the USA in 2017 and that there were 120 clarified photographs. These were also brought to court last November...

Following these developments, Ersan Barkın, the lawyer for the Hablemitoğlu family, objected to the “decision of non-prosecution” given by Prosecutor Zafer Ergün on December 24, 2023, regarding the court's criminal complaint, before the Ankara 9th Criminal Judgeship of Peace. The judgeship stated that the expert report regarding the Migros footage constituted “new evidence” and overturned the non-prosecution decision on December 27, 2024, on the grounds that it was “based on an incomplete investigation.”...

Upon this decision, the Court requested the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office to “urgently” identify the suspicious individuals thought to have followed Hablemitoğlu in the Eskişehir and Migros footage...

At the last hearing on April 21, Prosecutor Zafer Ergün stated that the investigation into this matter was ongoing and requested more time...

Noting that the defense lawyers, due to everything that happened during this process, filed a criminal complaint with the HSK against Prosecutor Zafer Ergün on charges of “concealing and tampering with evidence” and requested his suspension from duty, let us report the latest development before the trial to be held on Friday.

THE RESULT OF THE NEW INVESTIGATION

The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office completed the new investigation it launched regarding the people in the Migros and Eskişehir footage last month.

In the research conducted for the Migros footage within the scope of the investigation; it was stated that “the names of the individuals who shopped using card information together with Hablemitoğlu (before and after) in the 2004 investigation file were sent to the Ankara Police Department Counter-Terrorism Branch, efforts were made to determine their visuals, addresses, and contact information close to the date of the incident, and 12 names could be identified from the list of those who shopped, with only one person having no visual in the Police Polnet system,” and then the following was said:

“It is evaluated that all these names, whose clear identities and address information were reached, lived in the same or nearby places as the victim, and therefore they may have been in the market in question for the purpose of shopping...”

''CONNECTED TO LEVENT GÖKTAŞ BUT''

Again, regarding the Migros footage; an interesting detail was included about a person named M.H.H. who was on the list of shoppers. In the research conducted, it was stated that M.H.H.'s ex-spouse was an officer, a connection was detected between the phone used by this officer on the date of the incident and Levent Göktaş's phone, but it was understood that that officer's phone was not used at the murder scene or in the vicinity of Migros.

Finally, it was noted that “there were individuals who shopped at Migros without using card information, but given the current state of evidence, the clear identities of these people could not be determined.”

NO RESULTS FROM ESKİŞEHİR FOOTAGE

As for the investigation conducted for the Eskişehir footage; the Eskişehir Police Department was asked whether any law enforcement officers were assigned to follow Hablemitoğlu's conference. The Police Department reported that “there was no security measure planning, and therefore no determination could be made regarding the conference records.”

The visuals regarding the individuals who were in the conference hall and pointed out in the expert report were sent to the General Directorate of Security Counter-Terrorism Department for analysis. The Counter-Terrorism Department replied that “no similarity or matching could be made via the facial recognition system (YTS) due to the low resolution quality of the footage and the lack of detailed face photos of the individuals.”

IS THIS THE DECISION GIVEN AS A RESULT OF THE INVESTIGATION?

Stating that the identities of the individuals in both Migros and Eskişehir were investigated, no concrete evidence could be found that the identifiable individuals were involved in the murder of Hablemitoğlu, whether the defendants had any resemblance to the individuals in these images was also examined, the trial of the suspects against whom there is “strong suspicion of crime” regarding the act of killing Hablemitoğlu continues, and it is understood that “there is no question of identifying any other suspect/suspects,” a second “decision of non-prosecution” was given.

And it was seen that the signature of the indictment and trial prosecutor Zafer Ergün was at the bottom of this decision as well.

In other words, this important case, which has been forgotten and made to be forgotten, is exactly in the state of, “We went far, we went long, we went over hills and valleys, but we didn't make any progress”!..

Let us suffice with asking this: If there were people following the late Hablemitoğlu, would anyone shop with a card that would reveal their identity?

It seems that even if it is proven that the “triggerman” is not the triggerman, the defendants at hand will be punished one way or another!..

Müyesser YILDIZ

June 23, 2025