Prosecutor seeks aggravated life sentences for 6 defendants in Hablemitoğlu assassination trial: It was a political murder

News: Müyesser YILDIZ

In the final hearing of the case held at the Ankara 28th High Criminal Court on June 27, despite requests from both the Hablemitoğlu family's lawyer, Ersan Barkın, and the defense lawyers to expand the prosecution, Prosecutor Zafer Ergün requested that the file be referred to the prosecutor's office to prepare his final opinion, a request the court accepted.

Zafer Ergün, who served as both the indictment and trial prosecutor, prepared his final opinion in 21 days and submitted it to the court.

It was observed that there are significant differences between the final opinion dated July 18 and the indictment, and that Prosecutor Ergün was largely defending against the arguments made by the defendants and their lawyers.

THE ASSASSINATION, PREVIOUSLY CALLED "COMMITTED FOR MONEY," HAS BECOME A "POLITICAL MURDER"

The main differences between the indictment and the final opinion are as follows:

While the indictment argued that the "Levent Göktaş criminal organization" carried out this murder for money, the final opinion stated:

“As a result of the investigation and prosecution, it is understood that there was no ordinary motive for the murder of Necip Hablemitoğlu, that the reasons giving rise to the murder were that the victim's life, work, thoughts, and political views were found disturbing by a certain segment, and that the act of homicide committed as a result of this discomfort should be viewed as a ‘political murder.’ It is self-evident how difficult it is to investigate a political murder that has been committed, to collect its evidence, and to go back to the date of the event to identify new evidence or re-collect previously identified evidence. The investigation file numbered 2004/121619, conducted by our Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, was completed under these very difficulties.”

While the final opinion, like the indictment, relies on the statements of journalist Zihni Çakır, the following defenses were made against the claims of defense lawyers that the confidentiality of the investigation was violated through Çakır:

“As stated by some defense lawyers in their arguments, in our investigation file, we reached the suspects from the evidence, not the evidence from the suspects. In this context, one of the important pieces of evidence in the investigation file was the statement of the witness named Zihni Çakır, which we mentioned in our indictment as having a domino effect. Furthermore, some defendants and their lawyers claim that the witness acted like the investigation authority by equating him with the investigation authority in order to weaken the evidentiary value of Zihni Çakır's statement. However, the witness's duty is to tell what he knows, hears, and sees, and his statement was taken in this context. The witness had no evidence in his possession within the scope of the investigation file, and the issue of showing him a representative picture of a vehicle under investigation—which did not even constitute evidence in the indictment—during his statement taken by our Chief Public Prosecutor's Office is nothing more than an attempt to invalidate the important statement Nuri Gökhan Bozkır gave at the Istanbul Anti-Terror Branch on February 5, 2015, through Zihni Çakır.”

In the final opinion, while it is accepted that Nuri Gökhan Bozkır was brought to Turkey via a MİT operation rather than through the official extradition process from Ukraine, the statements Bozkır gave after being brought to Turkey were evaluated as an attempt to disrupt the investigation and prosecution process.

ABANDONED THE CLAIM THAT "MUMCUOĞLU CAME VIA CYPRUS"

Prosecutor Zafer Ergün, who in his indictment argued that Tarkan Mumcuoğlu, whom he alleged was the "trigger man," came to Turkey via the TRNC while serving in Kazakhstan and even called his wife from there, stated in his final opinion that Mumcuoğlu called his family using an "international call carrier" system. Prosecutor Ergün, who requested that the statements of witnesses who said Mumcuoğlu was in Kazakhstan at the time of the incident not be relied upon on the grounds that "20 years have passed, it cannot be remembered with certainty," changed the route of Mumcuoğlu's arrival in Turkey as follows:

“Although it was stated as a result of the investigation conducted by our Chief Public Prosecutor's Office that the defendant Ahmet Tarkan Mumcuoğlu might have come from Kazakhstan via the TRNC without entering our country's passport records to commit the act of homicide, it must be evaluated that the defendant could have come to our country by a method other than this; according to records obtained from Turkish Airlines, there were flight schedules between Kazakhstan-Turkey and Turkey-Kazakhstan almost every day in 2002, and the defendant Ahmet Tarkan Mumcuoğlu could have come to Turkey and returned with a fake passport arranged or held by him under the conditions of that day. The fact that the method by which the defendant Ahmet Tarkan Mumcuoğlu arrived has not been determined will not eliminate the accusation against the defendant according to all the evidence in the file. Moreover, it should be considered that a person who would carry out such a political murder would find it more difficult to be detected in an investigation if they carried out the act by coming through illegal means rather than legal ones.”

"THE REASON FOR THE MURDER IS THE MİT UNDERSECRETARIAT"

The prosecutor explained the reason for the murder as follows:

“Necip Hablemitoğlu, who openly struggled with the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization, which had not yet completed its power in the public sphere, who exposed its illegal activities to the public, who was preparing a book about these activities of the organization, and who presented important evidence to the State Security Courts of the period in the public case opened against the leader of the organization, became a target for the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization, the defendants Mustafa Özcan, Enver Altaylı, and Aydın Köstem, and the defendant Mustafa Levent Göktaş, who acted with these people, went outside the legal sphere, and was involved in work regarding the MİT Undersecretariat together with the victim at the same date, which prepared his process leading to death. The statement of the defendant Mustafa Levent Göktaş that he did not know the victim, who also wanted to be the MİT Undersecretary like himself at the time of the incident, does not reflect the truth in the face of the defendant's status at the time of the incident, his connections, and the statements taken.”

EVEN THOUGH THE WEAPON WAS NOT FOUND

The prosecutor also made the following remarkable assessment regarding the "organization":

“The purpose of the organization is to carry out acts such as homicide upon the instruction of the organization's leader. In this context, the defendants have an indefinite will to commit crimes. The members of the organization are more than three people. The leader and members of the organization have the ability to use weapons due to the public duties they hold. Therefore, it is an organization capable of committing the intended crime. The organization has a characteristic of continuity. This structure is not a structure that came together for a single event. Although the criminal organization in question carried out its activities at the time of the incident, its activities were not uncovered until the determination was made by our Chief Public Prosecutor's Office. It has been revealed by the evidence collected during both the investigation and prosecution phases and explained in our opinion that the defendant Mustafa Özcan, the so-called Turkey Imam of the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization, contacted the defendant Mustafa Levent Göktaş through the defendant Aydın Köstem as a result of the plan they made with the defendant Enver Altaylı to ‘silence’ Necip Hablemitoğlu, that the defendants decided to kill Necip Hablemitoğlu, that Enver Altaylı and Aydın Köstem incited Mustafa Levent Göktaş, and that the defendant Mustafa Levent Göktaş carried out the act of killing Necip Hablemitoğlu for the reasons explained, through the defendants Nuri Gökhan Bozkır, Fikret Emek, and Ahmet Tarkan Mumcuoğlu, who were subordinate to him both by duty and within an illegal organizational bond, and that in the concrete case, Ahmet Tarkan Mumcuoğlu killed the victim with a firearm that could not be seized.”

Ali Soykan, the lawyer for retired Colonel Levent Göktaş, who is alleged to be the leader of the organization, reacted to the final opinion by saying, “This is not a final opinion, it is a new indictment. The historical development of the indictment and the plot of the event have been completely changed. The court will say, ‘I am bound by the indictment and the act in the indictment,’ and will decide to acquit the defendants.”