Detained Necati Özkan publishes his second letter from prison: 'I am not an enemy, I am a citizen'

Necati Özkan, who was arrested during the operations launched against the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality on March 19, 2025, has addressed the public from prison. Özkan provided a detailed critique of the indictment prepared by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.

Here is that letter from Özkan:

In my first letter that I sent to you at the end of December, I summarized why I was targeted in the operations launched against the İBB on March 19, 2025, and the baseless allegations for which I was arrested twice in a row.

In this letter, I will provide examples of how the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office prepared an indictment that seeks to create crimes and criminals, despite the clear and precise criteria of criminal law. The example action I will describe, called "İstanbul Senin" (Istanbul is Yours), will help you understand the kind of judicial persecution I am facing without any evidence showing a concrete connection to even one of the alleged crimes.

FROM AN ADVERTISEMENT FILM TO A FALSE ACCUSATION

ACTION 13, which begins on page 192 of the İBB indictment—said to be prepared to "clean up the corruption of the century"—and is discussed for exactly 68 pages, covers one of the two accusations against me. I was never asked a single question at any stage of the investigation regarding the "İstanbul Senin" mobile application, which is alleged to have committed the crime of "giving, disseminating, or obtaining personal data," and I am accused of committing these crimes jointly with individuals, the vast majority of whom I have never met in my life.

Just like the E-Devlet (e-Government) application, I do not know the software, the operating method, or the security structure of the "İstanbul Senin" application, which was put into service by the İBB in November 2021 so that 16 million Istanbulites could easily access municipal services from their mobile phones.

I do not know what kind of data it collects, where it collects data from, or where it stores it. Not only is my competence in the field of technology insufficient to understand these issues, but I also have no administrative or any other authority at any stage of the "İstanbul Senin" project.

Moreover, there is not a single witness statement, a single report, a single record, or even a piece of evidence in the 68-page case narrative of the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office that accuses me. Despite this, the prosecutor's office can suddenly reach a false conclusion that I am one of the defendants who "processed personal data with the İstanbul Senin application, tried to manipulate society for organizational purposes, and leaked the obtained data abroad," and can demand that I be punished for decades under 12 separate articles.

The accusations in the relevant sections are not for me, nor is it possible for them to be true for the other accused persons.

I AM NOT AN ENEMY, I AM A CITIZEN!

As a professional who managed Ekrem İmamoğlu's election campaign from the outside, the only thing I did was to shoot an advertisement film called "İstanbul Senin".

The main idea of this video clip*, which was released in February 2019, was the promise of democratic participation. Shooting this advertisement film, which later inspired the "name" of a mobile application, is neither a crime nor wrong under the law. At most, it is doing one's job properly.

While placing me in the defendant's chair without establishing any causal link to the alleged crime, the prosecutor's office forgets or ignores that I am not an İBB employee, and that I do not have any position, staff, responsibility, or signature authority in the İBB or its subsidiaries. It does not take into account that I did not enter the tenders of Beylikdüzü Municipality, the İBB, or their subsidiaries between 2014 and 2025, and that I did not even submit a bid.

Likewise, the prosecutor's office chooses to keep out of sight the clear and definitive truth in the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) report in the investigation file, which states: "...When looking at the bank accounts of Öykü Reklam, no account activity with the İBB group was encountered."

The baseless and abstract accusation directed at me regarding this indictment and the "İstanbul Senin" application is also a clear and historical document that the team conducting the investigation did not act impartially. It is understood that the purpose of the approach in the indictment is beyond ensuring justice and protecting society from corruption.

Unfortunately, the absence of crime and criminal evidence in this indictment is not an exception, but almost a rule. Therefore, it is impossible to seek causality, consistency, and evidence-based justice, which are fundamental in law, in this indictment. In short, the indictment interprets and passes judgment by looking at the perpetrator, not the act.

In short, the indictment I am facing is a text prepared not with a mentality that sees me as a citizen and therefore respects the most fundamental principles of law, but with a mentality that almost sees me as an enemy. A citizen cannot be seen as an enemy, nor can they be defined as such. The citizen is the owner of the country and the fundamental building block of the state. This is why, in a state of law, the smallest injustice done to a single citizen is considered to have been done to the entire nation, the state, and public order.

As Montesquieu said, "Every punishment (every detention) not based on definitive evidence is tyranny."

The struggle against tyranny is a matter of life and death for all of us. Because if tyranny wins, humanity loses. Let us not allow this. Neither in this case, nor in other cases...