The matter of Yaşar Güler’s aide-de-camp!..

On the 9th anniversary of the July 15 coup attempt, Erdoğan was granted the authority to extend the term of office for force commanders up to the age of 72.

During the deliberations of this regulation at the TBMM Planning and Budget Committee, Deputy Minister of National Defense Şuay Alpay explained that “FETÖ” had prevented officers who were not among them from becoming staff officers in the TSK (Turkish Armed Forces), stating, “We are realizing this as a state only now. We currently have soldiers fighting heroically in counter-terrorism operations beyond our borders. These individuals were not included in the staff officer processes by FETÖ. For this reason, we want to evaluate both our justification regarding staff officer status and our existing heroic soldiers and their experience.” Major General Orhan Gürdal, General Director of Personnel at the Ministry of National Defense, reported that after July 15, 95 percent of staff officers turned out to be “FETÖ” members and that they had dismissed them.

Opposition deputies naturally reacted to these admissions. İYİ Party’s Ayyüce Türkeş said, “Was no intelligence received at all? The government needs to criticize itself very seriously. We are absolutely horrified”... CHP’s Veli Ağbaba reminded, “You ruined the chemistry of the TSK, you razed it to the ground. If there were a death penalty, you would have given it to İlker Başbuğ.” CHP’s Tahsin Ocaklı also spoke, saying, “It has been 9 years, FETÖ in the TSK never ends; we heard that the Minister of National Defense’s aide-de-camp was also arrested for FETÖ. It is the government that feeds and raises these people.”

Yes, as Tahsin Ocaklı stated, just 10 days before those meetings in Parliament, Minister of National Defense Yaşar Güler’s aide-de-camp, Colonel K.K., had been detained for “FETÖ” and arrested three days later.

K.K. was not the only name detained in this operation; detention warrants were issued for a total of 176 people, including 174 active-duty personnel, among them colonels and lieutenant colonels.

No one was surprised, and no one questioned it. Because shortly before the operation, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had made a statement such as, “The number of FETÖ members within the TSK who have not yet been exposed is higher than the ratio of those who participated in the July 15 coup attempt.”

Strangely, on July 10, 2019, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had emphasized, word for word, after an operation it conducted, that “the number of members who have infiltrated the TSK and have not yet been exposed is higher than the ratio of those who participated in the coup attempt.” It seems that not an inch of progress has been made in 6 years!..

There was a confidentiality order on the file; however, from the very first moment, information specifically about the aide-de-camp K.K. was shared in detail with the media. While it was explained that K.K. was personnel of the Naval Forces Command, that the Prosecutor’s Office worked in coordination with the Ministry of National Defense, that Istanbul Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor Can Tuncay, who made the identification, had informed the Ministry about the situation before the operation, and that K.K.’s connection had been severed, not only the Prosecutor’s Office’s payphone detections but also K.K.’s statement at the Criminal Judgeship of Peace were shared. Meanwhile, it was also emphasized that the coordination between the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of National Defense continued before the Supreme Military Council (YAŞ).

In short, even while there was not even an indictment yet, someone had already been “executed” in the eyes of the public!..

MOTHER, FATHER, SPOUSE PHONES

The subject of the operation is the allegation that they were called from payphones between 2007-2014. Let us convey the situation of some of the other soldiers who were arrested before aide-de-camp K.K. on the grounds that there was a “possibility of flight” from their statements.

The lawyer for SİHA (UCAV) pilot S.Ş. explained that some of the calls were made by scammers, that when queried on the internet, it was seen that these numbers belonged to scammers, that the calls did not fit the sequential call criteria within the scope of “FETÖ” anyway, that no one affiliated with the organization had called before or after, that one of the specified numbers belonged to S.Ş.’s father and that S.Ş. had called his father from a payphone, that the last call was made in 2015, that S.Ş. had participated in numerous domestic and international operations during this period, and that he had passed very serious security investigations while being appointed as a SİHA pilot.

M.P. noted that he had been detained before in December 2024 for the same payphone issue, that the same calls were asked about, and that a decision of non-prosecution was issued.

G.Ç. stated that he was detained while at an international exercise, that there could not be an organization call of 135 seconds, and furthermore, that he appeared to have been called from Istanbul even though he had never served in Istanbul.

B.D. said that he served in Syria for 5 years after the coup, participated in the Idlib and Afrin operations, returned home as a hero, and that G.D., who was mentioned in the sequential call, was his mother, and G.S. was his classmate.

Y.K. noted that he had been on duty in Azerbaijan for 6 months and came when called, saying, “A.A. is someone I served with in Cyprus. O.K. is his cousin. All calls made in 2013-2014 were made by A.A.’s father. A.A.’s father found me a car. Since I don’t understand cars, he helped me. Because of these calls, A.A. and O.K. also underwent investigations. When A.A.’s father proved that he made the calls himself, a decision of non-prosecution was issued for both of them, and they returned to their duties. Because A.A.’s father has obsessive-compulsive disorder, he uses a payphone on the grounds that phones emit radiation. The second phone stated to be called sequentially does not belong to me.”

EVEN THOUGH THE POLICE REPORT SAID “NO PERIODIC CALLS”

As for Minister of National Defense Yaşar Güler’s aide-de-camp, Colonel K.K.; his staff was in the Naval Forces Command, but he had been serving in the Special Forces Command since 2005.

He was accused of calls made between 2007-2013 on two phones stated to belong to him. However, one of these was a phone registered in his sister-in-law’s name and used by his wife. Indeed, this situation was stated in the Police report, and it was reported that no evaluation was made for that reason.

In the calls regarding the phone used by K.K., two groupings were made. In the first, there are 15 singular calls. Most of these turned out to be civilians, not soldiers. He appears to have been called from Istanbul, where he never served, and for example, in one, he spoke for 851 seconds, and in another for 2 seconds. The situation in the sequential call grouping is as follows:

K.K. does not know the person he was called with, who is stated to be serving in the Naval Forces Command, and the other is a captain he served with in the Special Forces Command. First, that person is called for zero seconds. Then he is called for 18 seconds. K.K. said in his statement, “Since cell phones were forbidden at that time, personnel were calling from payphones. They probably called the other captain first, and when they couldn’t reach him, they called me.”

Again, in the police report regarding K.K., even though it was stated that “No periodic calls or coded saving were found,” he was arrested based on singular calls and calls on his wife’s phone, with a justification such as, “Although it is understood that he was called 27 times from Ankara via GSM line between 2012-2015 and that the calls were grouped as 3 groups of sequential calls, there was no military personnel in the direction of this line within the call groups, but in the examination made on the suspect’s qualification card, it was determined that he was serving in Ankara on the dates of the calls.”

IS IT CHARACTER ASSASSINATION?

After the arrest decision and while there was still a confidentiality order on the file, K.K.’s lawyer, Süleyman Demirel İlbak, whom we interviewed, had made the following assessment:

“The baseless and unfounded allegations against my client, which have appeared on various news sites, do not reflect the truth. We should actually not be surprised by arrest measures with such unrealistic allegations. Because during the Ergenekon and Balyoz conspiracy processes, Kemalist officers were also arrested with a number of baseless allegations. At the point we have reached, we believe that a character assassination is being carried out against K.K. due to the duty he performed. However, justice will be served sooner or later.”

WHO MADE K.K. AN AIDE-DE-CAMP?

Let us open a parenthesis here and point to two issues.

I wonder, do you remember the famous Serdar Atasoy case, who confessed that Fetullah Gülen had pinned his lieutenant rank? In 2020, even though intelligence notes about him reached even me, who was in prison at the time, he was promoted to brigadier general in that YAŞ. That was not enough; he was appointed to the Intelligence Presidency of the Land Forces Command.

When the allegations became widespread, he was first asked to retire so that it would not be said, “The name brought to the Intelligence Presidency was a FETÖ member,” and then the Prosecutor’s Office took action. Meanwhile, it was written and drawn that Serdar Atasoy was “detected thanks to the payphone investigation.” Yet, there were findings about him regarding July 15 long before, and he had undergone an investigation in 2017.

When he was detained, it was stated that he was a “confessor,” and he was released with a judicial control measure of signing twice a week. However, when he denied his confessions in a hearing where he was heard as a witness, it was decided to arrest him. Ultimately, he was sentenced to 14 years and 2 months in prison.

What we want to draw attention to is this: It was not asked who or whom wanted Serdar Atasoy to be promoted and appointed to the Intelligence Presidency; that is, those responsible were not investigated.

Secondly; until just before July 15, the General Staff denied the allegations that “There are FETÖ members in the TSK”... The operation preparations of the then-Prosecutor Okan Bato in İzmir were wanted to be stopped by saying, “We lost one of our kidneys in the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases. Please be careful, let us not lose our other kidney in these investigations as well.” It was rumored that these efforts were carried out by 2nd Chief Yaşar Güler on behalf of the then-Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar.

THE REASON WE REMINDED OF THESE?

According to what is alleged, and even presented as certain; if Colonel K.K. is a “FETÖ” member, shouldn’t it have been asked first and foremost, “Who or whom placed him right next to Minister of National Defense Yaşar Güler?”

We asked and investigated.

According to what we learned; when K.K. was a battalion commander in the Special Forces Command, Minister Yaşar Güler wanted an aide-de-camp who was “young, self-trained, from the Special Forces, and a team leader.” It was determined that the only one who met these conditions was K.K., who was a lieutenant colonel at the time. The Special Forces Commander called him and told him the situation, or rather, conveyed the duty. Furthermore, before K.K. started his duty as an aide-de-camp, his entire extended family underwent the most detailed investigations.

Let us also convey what the Ministry of National Defense did when the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office reported that K.K. had payphone calls.

Without saying, “Let us investigate as well” or “Let us put him on leave,” K.K. was called, and he was asked to submit his retirement petition without being told anything; he did so. A week or two later, he was taken from his home in a dawn operation!..

RELEASED

The latest situation in the K.K. file?

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which prepared his indictment on July 11, requested that K.K. be sentenced to prison with the same accusations in the arrest justification. The Istanbul 22nd High Criminal Court sent the file to Ankara with a decision of lack of jurisdiction on the grounds that the “crime” was committed in Ankara.

The Ankara 17th High Criminal Court, while accepting the indictment, decided to release K.K. with a judicial control measure of a travel ban.

In the decision taken by majority vote on August 1; it was stated that “considering the time K.K. spent in detention, the lack of possibility of influencing the evidence to be collected, the fact that he was caught at his residence, the absence of concrete facts in the file scope indicating a suspicion of flight, and the entire scope of the file and the current state of evidence, it was concluded that applying a judicial control measure for the defendant would be proportionate.”

Along with the release decision, the court decided to write to the Ankara Police to investigate whether there was any statement or identification regarding K.K., and to request the following from the BTK (Information and Communication Technologies Authority) regarding the phones in question:

“Determining the HTS records of the GSM line numbered .... ... .. .. used by the defendant between 31.12.2007-23.11.2012 and the GSM line numbered .... ... .. .. used by the defendant between 03.12.2012-14.05.2015, in a way that shows the base and counter-base stations of the calling and called numbers, including ‘0’ seconds, transferring them to a CD in Microsoft Excel and PDF file format, and sending the documents to be prepared very urgently... Giving the HTS records of these lines, for which information has been received from the BTK, to an expert to determine all fixed line calls except for banks, advertising institutions, and similar places, and obtaining an expert report on sequential calls regarding whether these fixed numbers are among the lines determined by the Ankara TEM Branch Directorate to have been called by the organization’s secret handlers, and whether a coded calling method was used...”

In short; of course, it applies to all suspects, but shouldn’t these investigations have been done at least before detaining the aide-de-camp of the great Minister of National Defense? Being forced to leave the TSK, to which he gave his years, 1 month of detention, and most importantly, being subjected to “character assassination,” in the words of his lawyer Süleyman Demirel İlbak, even when there is not even an indictment yet... Is it not a pity, is it not a sin?!

Müyesser YILDIZ

August 8, 2025