How was the secret witness brought back?.. What did the former Chief Public Prosecutor accuse the ABK Case Prosecutor of?..

Last week, on this day, Minister of Interior Ali Yerlikaya made the following post:

“A.B.K. Organized Crime Organization leader Serdar Sertçelik, who was detained in Hungary and whom we were searching for with a Red Notice, is in Turkey. A.B.K. organized crime organization leader Serdar Sertçelik was brought to our country from Hungary by the officers of the General Directorate of Security KOM Department and the Interpol-Europol Department, together with the Hungarian Police. Serdar Sertçelik, for whom a Red Notice was issued for the crimes of ‘Being a Member of an Organization Established for the Purpose of Committing Crimes, Intentional Killing and Killing to Conceal a Crime, Conceal Evidence of Another Crime or to Avoid Capture,’ was caught and detained in Hungary on 25.05.2024.”

Let us remind you once again who Serdar Sertçelik is. He was both the number two defendant and the secret witness with the code M7 in the “Ayhan Bora Kaplan organized crime organization” case. While he was under house arrest with an electronic tag, he fled abroad on November 27, 2023, upon learning that he was going to be taken into custody. He was caught and detained in Hungary, but was later released and sought asylum. Let us also note that Hungary rejected the request for Serdar Sertçelik’s extradition to Turkey on the grounds that he would not receive a “fair trial.”

So, was Serdar Sertçelik brought to Turkey in the way Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced?

Here is what we have learned:

Sertçelik submitted a petition to the Hungarian authorities stating that he wanted to go to Turkey and stand trial. After that, he boarded a plane and arrived in Istanbul. When it was seen during passport control at the airport that there was an arrest warrant for him, he was taken into custody and brought directly to the Ankara Courthouse. The prosecutor's office took his statement regarding several cases being heard separately from the main Bora Kaplan case. However, when Sertçelik stated that he wanted to give his statement on February 9 because he did not have any documents with him, he was referred to the Criminal Judgeship of Peace, arrested, and sent to Sincan Prison. Two days later, he connected to the Ankara 32nd High Criminal Court, which is hearing the main Bora Kaplan case, from prison via SEGBİS. Since there was no statement other than the one he gave as a secret witness in the file, his statement was to be taken for the first time. Sertçelik stated that he would make his defense later, and an arrest warrant was issued for him in this file as well.

Which one is the truth; Minister Yerlikaya’s account or the version told by the Serdar Sertçelik camp?

Of course, we are not going to trust and believe Sertçelik. But let us note that after becoming aware of Minister Yerlikaya’s statement, Sertçelik emphasized, first and foremost, during his interrogation at the Ankara 32nd High Criminal Court, that he had come to Turkey of his own volition.

THE IMPORTANT NAME IN THE FILE

Let us recall the cornerstones of the ABK case.

It was interpreted as a power struggle between the teams of former Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu and the new Minister Ali Yerlikaya.

After Serdar Sertçelik not only announced that he was a secret witness after fleeing abroad but also claimed that the police had fabricated the 19-page statement he gave under the code M7, and that these police officers had called him while he was abroad and asked him to name certain politicians, MHP Leader Devlet Bahçeli described the operation as a “coup against the MHP, AKP, and the People’s Alliance” and demanded that “the police, judiciary, and media extensions that serve the smear campaign against honorable names with secret witness statements be cracked down upon.” Subsequently, the police officers who conducted the Bora Kaplan operation were dismissed and arrested, and lawsuits were filed against them.

Another important cornerstone of the Bora Kaplan operation and the investigation process was the frequent mention of the name of Yüksel Kocaman, who became known during Erdoğan’s Pınarhisar Prison days and became a “rising star” of the judiciary, serving as the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor between 2017-2020 and being elected as a member of the Court of Cassation after 2020.

It was alleged that Bora Kaplan gave instructions for all transportation work to be done by a company in which Yüksel Kocaman was an unofficial partner, that he undertook the renovation and furniture work of Kocaman’s villa, and that he also gifted him a BMW.

Kocaman, on the other hand, vehemently denied these allegations, underlining that an operation was being conducted against Süleyman Soylu.

Yet, the owner of the aforementioned allegations was none other than Serdar Sertçelik.

How do we know? From the statement he gave as a secret witness with the code M7 on October 9, 2023, and the “urgent-important” stamped letter sent by Prosecutor Mustafa Kaya, who was conducting the investigation, to the Ankara KOM on November 8, 2023. In his letter, Prosecutor Kaya requested that the statement of this secret witness be “meticulously examined and the necessary research be carried out” as a basis for the “evidence collection process.”

In the 199-page research report they prepared after about 5 months of work, the police included some information and documents supporting M7’s allegations and submitted this to both the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and the 32nd High Criminal Court hearing the Bora Kaplan case. A satellite image of the villa stated to belong to Yüksel Kocaman was also included in the report, and it was written as “Yüksel Kocaman residence address.”

The work regarding Yüksel Kocaman was not limited to this. It emerged that in the WhatsApp correspondence between Prosecutor Mustafa Kaya and the KOM police during the investigation process, it was on the agenda to include Kocaman in the identification report, alongside some police officers who served in the Ankara Police Department during Süleyman Soylu’s ministerial term, but that the then-Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor Ahmet Akça did not allow this.

THE COURT OF CASSATION MEMBER’S CRIMINAL COMPLAINT

Let us come to Yüksel Kocaman’s initiatives that have not been reflected in the public eye until today.

He filed criminal complaints with the HSK (Council of Judges and Prosecutors) and the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office against the then-KOM police officers who prepared that research report about him, as well as Prosecutor Mustafa Kaya, who had it prepared, on charges of “misconduct in office, violation of privacy, unlawful public dissemination of personal data, and slander.”

In the criminal complaints, it was emphasized that “based on the meetings the suspects held under the name of so-called interviews using methods not found in the Criminal Procedure Code (CMK), they leaked Ayhan Bora Kaplan’s statements to the media while he was still in custody and in violation of the confidentiality of the investigation, containing lies and slander regarding Kocaman’s person, but it turned out that these allegations were not included in Bora Kaplan’s statement,” and thus “it was understood that the suspects abused their authority to set up a setup against Kocaman.”

Regarding the statement of the secret witness with the code M7, Serdar Sertçelik, and the police’s research report, the following was also stated:

“According to the statement of Serdar Sertçelik, who exposed himself, it is clearly evident that they created a secret witness through pressure and threats and took his statement, that they conducted an actual investigation based on these secret witness statements and took witness statements, that they had these witnesses identify the location regarding Yüksel Kocaman’s residence under the name of a crime scene investigation, that they exposed the residence address, that they determined the GSM line used by Kocaman and obtained his vehicle information, and examined his bank account movements... The so-called statement declarations belonging to the secret witness Serdar Sertçelik, which the suspect law enforcement officers created through pressure and threats, were converted into a prosecutor’s statement as if they had been taken in the presence of Public Prosecutor Mustafa Kaya. All suspects acted jointly with the intent to commit the same crime. After the statement report was created, Public Prosecutor Mustafa Kaya sent this statement to the KOM director with the instruction to investigate it urgently.”

In the final part of the criminal complaints, it was noted that this investigation conducted into Yüksel Kocaman was contrary to the Court of Cassation Law and that, according to Article 137 of the Constitution, an order constituting a crime cannot be fulfilled, and those who fulfill it cannot escape responsibility, and in this state, both the Prosecutor Mustafa Kaya who gave the order and the police officers who carried out the order committed a crime.

Upon these criminal complaints by Kocaman, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office began taking the statements of the police officers with a new investigation.

INVESTIGATION INTO THE BORA KAPLAN PROSECUTOR AS WELL

There were also important developments in the criminal complaint filed by the former Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor and Court of Cassation Member Yüksel Kocaman against Prosecutor Mustafa Kaya, who prepared the indictment for the main Bora Kaplan case and is still conducting some investigations related to Bora Kaplan.

Last July, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office first sent the criminal complaint against Prosecutor Mustafa Kaya to the HSK.

Then, on August 29, citing the article of the HSK Law which states, “Those who participate in the crimes of judges and prosecutors are subject to the same investigation and prosecution authorities,” it issued a “decision of lack of jurisdiction,” stating that “the investigation of the judicial member Mustafa Kaya, who was complained about to the HSK, must be conducted together,” and sent the criminal complaint regarding the police officers to the HSK as well.

So, what did the HSK do? In the letter it sent to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office last month, it stated that there was an ongoing investigation into Prosecutor Mustafa Kaya, but that the investigation of the police officers should be conducted by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, not the HSK.

In short; it turned out that after the police officers who conducted the Bora Kaplan operation, an investigation was also opened into the Prosecutor who conducted the investigations.

Let’s see what else will happen in this case after Serdar Sertçelik’s statements are taken!..