How was the most important 'Coup Case' reviewed at the Court of Cassation? 'Hulusi Akar must be heard for the truth'

Müyesser YILDIZ / 12punto.com.tr

It has been alleged that the rapporteur judge of the Court of Cassation 3rd Criminal Chamber, which handled the appeal of the Akıncı case—the most significant and voluminous case of July 15—consulted a judge who was elected to the Court of Cassation after the verdict was reached in this case regarding what to do.

In today's session of the trial, which is being heard by the Ankara 4th High Criminal Court at the Sincan Prison complex and began yesterday, the requests of the defendants, their lawyers, and the plaintiffs were heard.

While the majority of the defendants requested that the raw, unedited versions of the camera recordings from the Air Force Command headquarters, the Akıncı Air Base, and the Istanbul Moda Deniz Club be brought to court, the civilian defendant in the case, Kemal Batmaz, requested that numerous individuals, including Erdoğan, Binali Yıldırım, Efkan Ala, Hakan Fidan, Yaşar Güler, Şamil Tayyar, Mehmet Görmez, and Adnan Tanrıverdi, be heard as witnesses.

Defense attorney Ayten İzmirli also criticized the Presiding Judge for not allowing them to meet with their clients and for limiting their document exchanges to a few pages, stating, “I am not a prop here. Security was cited as the reason for not allowing us to meet with our clients.

Are they going to harm me, or am I going to harm them? I am ashamed that you said a few pages. There are millions of pages of documents in the file. A few might mean 2-3 to you, but 100 pages to me.”

"HE IS NOW AN ORDINARY AKP MP"

After saying, “Can you bring them? I don't have much hope, but,” Attorney İzmirli made the following requests:

“If you want the truth to come out in this case, you absolutely must hear Hulusi Akar. At the time, it was said, ‘He is going on an operation, he is very busy,’ and he was not heard. Now he is an ordinary AKP MP. He can come very easily and answer our questions. Similarly, Zekai Aksakallı is retired now; if you summon him, he will come. Abidin Ünal came, but the vast majority of the defendants could not ask questions. They said he had a plane to catch, that he was busy, and they whisked him away. Now he is traveling from one conference to another. If you summon him, he must be made to face our questions.”

DID A SINGLE RAPPORTEUR JUDGE REVIEW 1600 FOLDERS?

Attorney Serdar Öztürk voiced the following allegation regarding the appeal stage of the Akıncı case at the Court of Cassation:

“This is a case with 1600 folders and 486 defendants. We thought at least 10 rapporteur judges would examine it seriously to separate the right from the wrong. However, I learned that it was assigned to a single rapporteur judge, and that this judge—I don't blame him—desperately went to the former president and asked, ‘What am I going to do?’”

The rapporteur judge has no fault or sin. Giving it to a single judge is a mental breakdown.

You can confirm this with your colleagues at the Court of Cassation. None of our appeal petitions have been examined. There may be those who criticize the previous trial.

Presiding Judge Selfet Giray tried to conduct a good trial, but 486 defendants and unrelated files were brought together as if to make it impossible to resolve. Even if you were an artificial intelligence or a superhuman being, you could not get to the bottom of this file.”

THE ABİDİN ÜNAL DEBATE

When Ahmet Erdem, the lawyer for some of the plaintiffs, stated that former Air Force Commander Abidin Ünal had testified in both the General Staff main case and the Akıncı case, and that the defendants and lawyers had received answers to their very comprehensive questions, the defendants reacted by saying, “He is lying.”

Numerous defendants who took the floor explained how they were unable to ask Abidin Ünal questions. Abidin Ünal's lawyer, Ahmet Erdem, noted that there was no need to summon his client again.

Former Staff Colonel Fatih Yarımbaş, who was sentenced for attempting to kidnap the then-Special Forces Commander, emphasized that he is now being accused of property damage and said, “If I am being accused of property damage, Zekai must absolutely come here,” which caused laughter in the courtroom. Yarımbaş added the following:

“It is very difficult, but if you bring the witnesses, you will go down in history. We are saying let Zekai and Hulusi come. This case was a setup, a conspiracy against the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). If Zekai comes, I want to speak to him face to face. I will prove 100 percent that he is behind this conspiracy. Furthermore, the former presiding judge, Selfet Giray, has left a second signature on this case. He had already said, ‘Take the file and go, it will be needed at the Court of Cassation.’ And so it happened. Will this allegation by Attorney Serdar Öztürk be investigated?”

Following the completion of the statements, the hearing was adjourned to continue on Thursday.

News Source: 12punto