Fine imposed on Sedat Peker over posts about SADAT and Nevzat Tarhan: 'It does not mitigate the illegality'

Organized crime leader Sedat Peker has been fined.

According to a report by Fırat Fıstık from Sözcü, organized crime leader Sedat Peker, who is currently in the United Arab Emirates and is the subject of an Interpol red notice, had made revelations about various institutions and individuals three years ago. 

One of those involved SADAT and Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan. 

"BOTH THE AGENT AND THE TRAITOR..."

In his posts, Peker shared documents alleging that Tarhan had ties to the private defense consultancy company SADAT and stated that he had been working on psychological warfare. Tarhan and the company denied these allegations.

The Istanbul Anatolian 48th Criminal Court of First Instance subsequently filed a lawsuit over a tweet Peker posted on the subject, which read, "Both the agent and the traitor emerge from hypocritical thieves like you."

During the hearing, the prosecutor requested that Peker be punished for the crime of insult. Peker's lawyer stated, "There is no indication that the complainant was directly targeted. We request that the client's statement be taken." The court rejected the request to take Peker's statement, noting that, given the current state of evidence, it would not contribute to the case file.

STATEMENT FROM HIS LAWYER

Announcing its verdict, the court sentenced Peker to a fine for the crime of insult.

Sedat Peker's defense attorney Ersan Barkın stated that he found it unlawful for the court to issue a verdict without serving notice or taking a defense, saying the following:

This is a case we tried to join randomly after seeing it on Sedat Peker's e-Devlet portal. While it is known even by the most disinterested individual that he has not been in Turkey for 5 years, I do not know how to explain a court inviting a person who is subject to an Interpol red notice—a fact present in the UYAP system—to defend himself via a simple trial procedure, and then issuing a verdict without even being able to serve notice or allow the right to defense. Its contradiction with the Code of Criminal Procedure (CMK) is already clear, and it is obvious that it destroys the regulations on the right to defense in the Constitution and the ECHR. The fact that the penalty is a fine does not mitigate the illegality. What we are experiencing today is a system that issues a conviction in absentia against Sedat Peker even in the simplest insult file.