Critical development in the Hablemitoğlu case: Investigation into those images has finally begun

Developments that could be described as "starting from scratch" continue to occur in the trial regarding the assassination of academic and author Assoc. Prof. Dr. Necip Hablemitoğlu in front of his home 23 years ago.

The day before yesterday, we announced that the Ankara 9th Criminal Court of Peace had for the second time found "unlawful" and overturned the "decision of non-prosecution" issued by Zafer Ergün—who served as both the prosecutor who prepared the indictment and the trial prosecutor during the approximately 8-year investigation and trial process—regarding the investigation of individuals suspected of following Hablemitoğlu during his conference in Eskişehir on December 14, 2002, and at the Migros store where he shopped just before he was killed, despite the Court's request to do so.

Following this significant decision, another development took place the day before yesterday. The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, Terrorism Crimes Investigation Bureau, sent a letter to the Ankara 28th High Criminal Court, where retired Colonel Levent Göktaş and 8 defendants, two of whom are fugitives, are being tried, requesting the following:

- "To be informed whether any enhancement work has been performed on the camera footage related to the conference held in Eskişehir on December 14, 2002, and the shopping done at the shopping center on the day of the incident, which is in your court's case file, and if so, on what date and where it was performed..."

- "To send a copy of all expert reports obtained within the scope of your file regarding the footage in question, and also to send a copy of the footage in question to our Chief Public Prosecutor's Office for examination..."

A FILM-LIKE PURSUIT PROCESS

To understand the importance of those two pieces of footage and what this 7-line letter from the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office means, let us summarize the film-like process that has been going on for nearly 3 years in the trial.

It was thought that some individuals in those images, which would determine the course and even the fate of the trial, were following Hablemitoğlu. However, only the Migros footage was available. It was necessary to find the Eskişehir footage as well and to investigate the similarity of the individuals in both sets of footage to the defendants on trial. This was because the possibility had arisen that the assassins might not be the defendants in the case, but others.

In May 2023, the Court wrote to the Ankara Police Department for the Eskişehir footage. The police initially said, "Ask the Prosecutor's Office." This meant that the footage was in the Prosecutor's file. However, the indictment and trial prosecutor Zafer Ergün never mentioned this, and instead gave an opinion that the footage should be requested from the Police again. The response to this second letter was, "The police archive was swept away in a flood on July 15."

In short, this footage could not be found for 10 months; that is, until the hearing on March 8, 2024. After the defenses and statements were finished, Prosecutor Zafer Ergün, who was expected to give his opinion, requested a break in the hearing, stating that he needed to check some things in the judicial repository before doing so. When he returned to his seat after the break, he announced that the Eskişehir conference footage was in the Judicial Repository. Upon this, Ali Soykan, the lawyer for defendant number 1, Levent Göktaş, reacted as follows:

"The Prosecutor himself said that the Eskişehir conference footage was recorded in the Judicial Repository in 2018. So, he had it recorded himself. But he himself requested that this footage be brought from the Police. The Police first said, 'Ask the Prosecutor's Office,' then reported that this footage was swept away in the flood on July 15. Since it was recorded in 2018, it could not have been swept away in the flood in 2016. This means the file is being manipulated by a clique within the Police. Let a criminal complaint be filed against these officials who gave false statements."

At the end of that hearing, Prosecutor Zafer Ergün gave an opinion that this footage in the Judicial Repository should be brought into the file. The Court also decided to have them brought.

But shortly after, it emerged that one day before his opinion on March 8, Prosecutor Ergün had requested both the footage and dozens of sealed USBs, DVDs, and CDs from the Judicial Repository with an official letter, examined them, and then resealed and returned them. According to the defense lawyers, what was done was "evidence tampering and destruction of evidence." Although a request was made to the Court to draw up a report on the matter, file a criminal complaint against the prosecutor, have the prosecutor withdraw from the case, and complain to the Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK), no progress was made.

The footage finally reached the Court on March 22, 2024, and both pieces of footage were given to an expert on April 4. In the report he submitted on July 8, the expert concluded that 3 people were following Hablemitoğlu at Migros, and also pointed out "suspects showing physical similarity" among those who attended the conference in Eskişehir. In the second report he submitted on October 17, the expert stated that there was no similarity between the suspects in the footage and the defendants.

The Court then wrote to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office to investigate these three suspects identified by the expert. However, the indictment and trial prosecutor Zafer Ergün looked at the matter again in an interesting way and issued a "decision of non-prosecution," saying, "The trial must be conducted in accordance with the evidence identified in the indictment regarding the defendants and the evidence to be identified during the trial."

Ersan Barkın, the lawyer for the Hablemitoğlu family, objected to this decision. The Ankara 9th Criminal Court of Peace overturned the non-prosecution decision and ruled that the individuals in the footage should be investigated.

Prosecutor Zafer Ergün looked at this request made by the Court to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office again, and on May 30, 2025, he issued a "decision of non-prosecution" for the second time, on the grounds that "the identities of those who did not shop with a card at Migros could not be determined," and that "the matching of the individuals in the Migros and Eskişehir footage could not be done due to the low resolution of the footage."

It was after the objection of the Hablemitoğlu family's lawyer, Ersan Barkın, and one of the defendants, Levent Göktaş, that the Ankara 9th Criminal Court of Peace overturned this decision 13 days ago, and the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office made the requests we mentioned at the very beginning of the article; in other words, an investigation into the individuals in the footage has finally been initiated.

THE ISSUE OF IMAGE CLARITY

We have set aside a separate section for the questions in the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office's letter regarding "whether any enhancement work has been performed on the footage, and if so, on what date and where it was performed," because a process similar to the chase for finding the footage was experienced regarding this issue as well.

Namely;

At the hearing in July 2024, Ersan Barkın, the lawyer for the Hablemitoğlu family, drew attention to an article dated December 22, 2019, by Ferhat Ünlü, one of the writers for the Sabah newspaper, which has been the most persistent on this case and has issued a "verdict" even before the trial, let alone the indictment.

In the article titled "The first unsolved murder of the millennium," written while there was still a confidentiality order on the investigation, Ferhat Ünlü had made the following claim:

"The camera footage of the two people who applied physical surveillance to Hablemitoğlu before the murder was sent to the USA because it was blurry. It was cleaned there and put into the file. There is infinite benefit in the prosecutor accessing this footage as well. Because this footage could provide a match with the images of Bozkır and the other person."

After reminding everyone of this article, Lawyer Barkın asked, "Ferhat Ünlü wrote that the Migros footage was blurry, but that the state sent this footage to the USA and clarified it, and that the clear footage is in the file. Where is this footage? Ferhat Ünlü knows the file, but I don't. If there is clear footage, why was blurry footage given to the expert?"

Let us underline that even in the non-prosecution decision he issued on May 30, 2025, Prosecutor Zafer Ergün said, "matching could not be done due to the low resolution of the footage," and continue.

After the issue was brought to the agenda at the hearing in July 2024, Levent Göktaş's lawyer, Ali Soykan, who scrutinized the investigation file, discovered that Ferhat Ünlü's claim was true, that the "enhanced footage from the USA" had been sent in 2017 as 120 photographs, and then requested that the footage in question be brought from the Ankara Counter-Terrorism Department (TEM).

The Court accepted this request at the hearing on October 31, 2024, and wrote a warrant to TEM, and finally, on November 11, 2024, this footage was also found and sent.

IS THE NEEDLE SHIFTING TOWARD THE RESIGNED PROSECUTOR?

We asked Lawyer Ali Soykan about the meaning and importance of the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office immediately initiating an investigation regarding the footage after the non-prosecution decision was overturned and making pinpoint requests from the Court, and he summarized his assessments as follows:

"I emphasized in the hearings that the investigation was being deliberately covered up, that the biggest obstacle to finding the real perpetrators was Prosecutor Zafer Ergün, and that for the first time in my life, I saw a prosecutor giving an opinion so that the material truth would not emerge. Let me remind you of some correspondence regarding the footage; although the Ankara Police Department delivered the footage sent to the USA for enhancement upon the request of Zafer Ergün himself to him personally on July 26, 2017, Zafer Ergün replied to the Court's warrant dated July 18, 2024, on October 30, saying, 'The Migros footage was not enhanced by the Police, and it was not sent to any country, including the USA, for enhancement.' But then, the footage that was sent to the USA and enhanced as a result of the Court's letter to the Police was presented to the file. Now, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office asking whether any enhancement was done on the footage and the time and place of this indicates that an investigation is being conducted into the fact that the investigation was deliberately covered up, and that the needle may be shifting toward the resigned Prosecutor Zafer Ergün."

Finally, let us draw attention to the specialty of Prosecutor Adem Akıncı, who initiated the investigation regarding the Eskişehir and Migros footage. Akıncı is a name who conducted the investigation and prepared the indictment for the assassination of Russia's Ambassador to Ankara, Andrey Karlov, on December 19, 2016, meaning he is an expert on "FETÖ."

Müyesser YILDIZ

December 25, 2025