Who hid these images and why?

On the 22nd anniversary of the assassination of academic and author Assoc. Prof. Dr. Necip Hablemitoğlu on December 18, our media discussed an expert report regarding the conference Hablemitoğlu gave in Eskişehir four days before he was killed, as well as footage from a Migros store taken just before the assassination. The report stated that three people followed Hablemitoğlu at the Migros store and that there was a physical resemblance between these three individuals and 12 people at the Eskişehir conference.

However, this expert report, which was presented as if it were new, had actually been submitted to the court in July, and other significant developments had occurred since then.

Let us summarize the issue of this footage in its main outlines.

The Ankara 28th High Criminal Court, which is hearing the Hablemitoğlu assassination case, wrote to the Ankara Police Department and the Prosecutor's Office during the very first hearings, requesting that the Eskişehir conference footage be located, that it be investigated whether the two people thought to have followed Hablemitoğlu at the Migros store were also present at the Eskişehir conference, and whether these individuals resembled the defendants being tried in the case.

However, the Eskişehir footage could not be found. While there was no word from the Prosecutor's Office, the Ankara Police Department first said, "Ask the Prosecutor's Office..." Then, they reported that their archives had been flooded on July 15.

Just when all hope was lost, the indictment and trial prosecutor submitted an opinion stating that this footage was in the Judicial Deposit and should be requested from there. But in the meantime, it emerged that before the prosecutor submitted that opinion to the Court, he had taken the footage from the Judicial Deposit, examined it, and then resealed and returned it to the deposit.

Although the defense attorneys characterized the prosecutor's actions as "concealing and tampering with evidence" and filed a criminal complaint with the Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK), no one paid any attention.

Ersan Barkın, the lawyer for the Hablemitoğlu family, also asked, "If such footage existed, why was it not included in the file for 22 years?"

Let us continue.

The court gave the found footage to an expert on April 4. In the report submitted 3 months later on July 8, the expert stated that it was believed three people followed Hablemitoğlu at the Migros store, and marked "photos of suspicious individuals thought to show physical resemblance" between these three people and those who attended the conference in Eskişehir. The report also noted that detailed facial photos of the individuals at the Migros could not be obtained due to their distance from the camera.

Later, current photos of the defendants being tried in the case were obtained and compared with the individuals in the Migros and Eskişehir conference footage to check for similarities. In the report submitted on October 17, the expert concluded that there was no resemblance between the defendants and those individuals.

THE FATE OF THE CLARIFIED FOOTAGE

There was a problem specifically regarding the Migros footage; it was not clear.

However, on December 22, 2019, while the investigation was still ongoing and a confidentiality order was in place, Ferhan Ünlü from Sabah Newspaper wrote that the state had sent them to the USA to be clarified.

While the indictment and trial prosecutor argued that there was no enhanced footage, the defense attorneys, who scrutinized the file, discovered that in the "index of materials within the scope of the investigation file" from 2018, there were records of 120 photos that had been "sent to the USA and enhanced," in addition to the Eskişehir footage. However, this footage, which the Police submitted on 2 CDs, was not included in the list of evidence sent to the Court.

Ali Soykan, one of the defense attorneys who brought the issue to the agenda at the hearing on October 31, presented documents showing the difference between the evidence list sent to the Judicial Deposit in 2018 and the evidence list sent to the Court. After stating that the Prosecutor was not telling the truth about the enhanced footage, he explained the following:

"There is a statement in the file taken by the Prosecutor himself from a witness named Atilla Yılmaz. The Prosecutor says, 'There is no enhanced footage.' Yet, it is established that this witness, Atilla Yılmaz, was shown an image of a male individual from an expert report, and that there is clear footage in the file showing the individual's hair structure—to the point where his sideburns are visible—his walking style, that he was wearing a long black coat, and that he was buying a small item from the nut aisle. The Prosecutor must have seen this footage at the time to have asked the person named Atilla Yılmaz about it. Presumably, if the image were not clear, the sideburns, hair structure, walking style, and the fact that the person was shopping at the nut aisle would not be visible. Where is this footage? Among the footage you gave to the expert, there is neither this enhanced footage that came from America nor the footage the Police made; but there is the footage the Prosecutor lost. Now I ask again: where is this enhanced footage and why is it being hidden by the Prosecutor himself?"

Following this statement, the Court took the following interim decision:

"As it is understood from the Ankara Police Department's report dated July 26, 2017, mentioned in Attorney Ali Soykan's statement, that the footage belonging to the business named Migros was sent to the USA and that 120 photo files were enhanced and sent, it is decided to write a warrant to the Ankara Police Department Counter-Terrorism Branch to send a copy of the relevant footage to our court..."

IT ARRIVED, BUT IT WAS INCOMPLETE

The current situation is as follows:

Upon this decision by the court, the Ankara Police sent the aforementioned enhanced footage on a CD last month.

However, the lawyers who received the CD saw that although "120 photos" was written on the envelope, only 79 photos came out of the CD.

Let us note that this development will mark tomorrow's hearing; the lawyers will both ask why only 79 photos came out of the CD and will request that the identities of the individuals in the clarified footage be determined using the "Kapan" system at the Counter-Terrorism and Cyber Crimes Departments, and that a criminal complaint be filed against them.

Müyesser YILDIZ

January 1, 2025