What was found on the encrypted phones in the Sinan Ateş assassination?

While the refusal of lawyer Rezan Epözdemir—who was detained and arrested on charges of "mediating bribery"—to provide his phone password is being debated, a remarkable development has occurred in the assassination case of former Idealist Hearths (Ülkü Ocakları) President Assoc. Prof. Sinan Ateş. It has been alleged that a response was received regarding the mobile phones of defendants lawyer Serdar Öktem and former Ankara Murder Bureau Chief Commissioner Mustafa Ensar Aykal, which had been sent to the US because they could not be opened as the defendants refused to provide their passwords; however, it is claimed that the presiding judge decided not to upload this response to the National Judiciary Informatics System (UYAP) and not to provide it to the lawyers of the parties.

In the Sinan Ateş assassination case, which was concluded by the Ankara 32nd High Criminal Court on October 2, 2024, 5 defendants were sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment and 5 defendants were sentenced to 15 years in prison. The files of lawyer Serdar Öktem and Mustafa Ensar Aykal, who did not provide their phone passwords, were separated. With the verdict, it was decided that lawyer Öktem would be released, while Aykal would remain in custody.

In the first hearing of the separated case for these two defendants held on February 6, Aykal was also released, and the then-presiding judge of the 32nd High Criminal Court, Mehmet Güven—who was appointed as a prosecutor to the Court of Appeals via the summer decree—had announced that no response had been received regarding the phones sent to the US and that additional information had been requested.

It has been learned that the expected response from the US arrived in recent days, and that a flash drive was sent along with a 3-page letter.

Following this development, the lawyers of the parties who went to the court were not given the letter or the flash drive, with the justification that "the presiding judge has given a verbal instruction. These will not be uploaded to UYAP and will not be given to the lawyers of the parties."

Former AKP MP Şamil Tayyar, who has voiced various allegations in the investigation into lawyer Rezan Epözdemir, recently claimed: "It is planned to crack the two separate mobile phones for which he did not provide passwords with the help of the MIT (National Intelligence Organization). Technological support from the US or China may be obtained to crack the passwords of the iPhone brand phones. If the passwords are cracked, it is expected that the network of dirty relations in the judiciary will be unraveled and the investigation will be deepened. If the investigation deepens, it is hard to predict where it will lead. I would like to underline that it is as important as the İmamoğlu investigation... This process will have multi-faceted consequences."

In that case, let us ask the following:

Did the MIT not have the capability at that time to handle the phones in the Sinan Ateş assassination, such that they had to be sent to the US?

If the claim of the court officials is true, what is the reason for wanting to hide the response letter and the flash drive that came from the US?

Müyesser YILDIZ

August 14, 2025