ABK trial: Allegations of producing fake content for $100,000

The session of the trial held today by the Ankara 32nd High Criminal Court at the Sincan Prison Complex began with a one-hour delay and was completed in half an hour, as only one of the witnesses scheduled to be heard was present.

Ankara Deputy Police Chief Y.D., who was heard on the allegation that he had communicated with secret witness Serdar Sertçelik while he was in Hungary, confirmed this meeting and explained the following:

“Serdar Sertçelik called me. He stated that he wanted to come to Turkey if he would not be arrested, claiming that lawyer Cengiz Haliç had been arrested in Dubai and that he would be cleared as a result. I told him that this was no longer a matter that concerned us, that the issue concerned the court, and that his lawyers could intervene. Afterwards, I wrote a report regarding this conversation and submitted it to the provincial police chief and the governor. I also informed the prosecutor and notified them that his lawyers could come.”

Upon questions from the Presiding Judge, Deputy Police Chief Y.D. stated that he had met Serdar Sertçelik at a childhood friend's workplace in Antalya, that he had no criminal record at that time, that he had not met with him since, and that when he called from Hungary, he did not say anything about wanting to benefit from the effective remorse law, nor did he mention the WhatsApp content on the recovered phone.

The prosecutor also asked, “Where did he find your phone number?” Y.D. replied, “He said he found it from someone he called abroad, but I did not ask who it was.”

Following the completion of Y.D.'s statements, the Presiding Judge concluded the hearing. As the defendants were being taken to the holding cell and the courtroom was being cleared, the Judge asked Bora Kaplan when lawyer Ramazan Tufan, whom he wanted to be heard as a witness, would arrive. While Kaplan said, “After I give my statement,” his lawyers stated that Tufan had come today because he was going abroad for 10 days and was in the courtroom. Upon this, Kaplan requested that Tufan be heard today. The Presiding Judge accepted the request, issued an interim decision, and reopened the session.

The witness had said “I did not meet”

Before relaying the statements of lawyer Ramazan Tufan, let us recall the following.

During the 8th session of the trial in April, when businessman Mustafa Öztaş—whose fingerprints were found on a phone allegedly belonging to Serdar Sertçelik that was left in front of the office of the lawyer of Şevket Demircan, the then-Deputy Head of the Organized Crime Branch who conducted the Bora Kaplan operation, and who also appeared as the primary user of a document on that phone—was heard as a witness, Bora Kaplan asked Öztaş, whom he claimed to have given “loan money” in the past, the following:

“When I was sitting in my office, a friend of mine was with us. Did Mustafa Öztaş say ‘We can manipulate WhatsApp messages’ or not? After I was arrested, did this friend of mine, lawyer Ramazan Tufan, call you and ask about Erkan Doğan’s fake messages?”

Upon Öztaş’s answer of “No,” Bora Kaplan had requested that lawyer Ramazan Tufan be heard as a witness.

Bora Kaplan: “It’s not worth $100,000”

In today’s session, lawyer Ramazan Tufan explained that Bora Kaplan, whose lawyer he was during the period he was detained, thought that the WhatsApp correspondence allegedly belonging to himself and the complainant Erkan Doğan was fake, and that he wanted him to meet with Mustafa Öztaş, whom he knew to be knowledgeable about such matters, saying, “We met at a patisserie in Çukurambar. He said he could create WhatsApp correspondence that even the Criminal Department could not understand as fake and asked for $100,000; Bora Kaplan did not accept.”

Lawyer Tufan, upon the prosecutor's questions, stated that Mustafa Öztaş claimed he had made these fake correspondences himself but also had connections, and that he did not ask for anything other than Erkan Doğan’s phone number. Meanwhile, Cengiz Varol, the lawyer for former Ankara Deputy Police Chief Murat Çelik, who is both a defendant and a complainant in the case, asked the following:

“Was Mustafa Öztaş going to prove that those WhatsApp correspondences were fake? If he was going to do it in a way that even the Criminal Department could not understand, how would this proof be realized? Or was he going to design the correspondences in a way that would benefit Bora Kaplan? Why did Bora Kaplan refrain from paying the $100,000?”

Lawyer Tufan said, “Because Bora Kaplan thought the correspondences were fake, he wanted to produce a fake correspondence in the same way and present it to the court.”

Bora Kaplan, who requested the floor on the grounds that the subject was not fully understood, made the following statements:

“We wanted Mustafa Öztaş to produce fake content and present it to the court. I spoke with my other lawyers; they said that just handling the WhatsApp issue would not be enough. Upon this, saying it was not worth $100,000, we gave up.”

Lawyer Tufan accepted the request for base station records to be brought in to reveal whether he had met with Mustafa Öztaş upon Bora Kaplan’s request.

The last 4 pages of Kaplan’s statement

Meanwhile, Kaplan asked lawyer Tufan, “Did the police interfere with me while my statement was being taken for the MASAK report?”

Lawyer Tufan replied, “They took his statement on the condition that the women would be released; such a conversation took place. Bora Kaplan said, ‘You said you would release the women, you gave them house arrest.’”

Following this, Kaplan said:

“On the first day my statement was taken, lawyer Umut Köroğlu was with me. The police stated that the women in my family had been detained and bargained for me to give a statement in the way they wanted in order for them to be released. On the second day, it was not lawyer Umut Köroğlu who came to my statement, but lawyer Ramazan Tufan. The police had made changes to the section they added to me. They accidentally had him sign these changed pages. When one of the police officers remembered that lawyer Köroğlu was present during my first day’s statement, they took the pages signed by lawyer Tufan to remove them and have them re-signed by lawyer Köroğlu.”

After these allegations, Kaplan asked lawyer Tufan, “There were four extra pages. Did they say, ‘We will have Umut Köroğlu sign these’?” Lawyer Tufan replied, “Yes, they did not have me sign the last 4 pages.”

The trial will continue tomorrow.

Müyesser YILDIZ

June 1, 2026