Hablemitoğlu Assassination Case: Key witness unable to testify

Müyesser YILDIZ - 12punto.com.tr

In today's session of the trial held at the Ankara 28th High Criminal Court, non-detained defendants Levent Göktaş, Fikret Emek, Tarkan Mumcuoğlu, Mehmet Narin, and Aydın Köstem were present in the courtroom, while detained defendant Nuri Gökhan Bozkır and Enver Altaylı, who is convicted in another case, participated via SEGBİS from Sincan Prison.

The hearing of witnesses continued in today's session.

“Zihni Çakır Was Someone Who Wanted to Be an Intelligence Asset”

Bayram Özbek, a former police chief convicted of membership in FETÖ/PDY, whom journalist Zihni Çakır—the most important source of the indictment—claimed had knowledge of the assassination, denied Çakır's allegations. Özbek stated that he did not know the defendants, that he knew Hablemitoğlu only from the media, that he worked in Ankara between 1996 and 1998, and that he was stationed in Istanbul at the time of the assassination.

Explaining that he met Zihni Çakır because their books were published by the same publishing house and that they met a few times but did not talk about the Hablemitoğlu assassination, Özbek noted that they might have evaluated publications on this subject on Mehmet Eymür's and Doğu Perinçek's websites. Özbek made the following remarks about Çakır:

“I filed lawsuits against him in 2013-2014 due to his other claims. He is an inconsistent person known to everyone, who markets false and incorrect information, is unstable, and sells whatever information he has to everyone by exaggerating it. He was a type who tried to market himself to the police. Everyone knew this. He worked first against Ergenekon and then against FETÖ. He wanted to be an intelligence asset. He is someone who has made influence peddling his profession.”

Prosecutor Zafer Ergün asked Özbek, “You said that articles about the Hablemitoğlu assassination were written on Mehmet Eymür's Atin.org and Yeşil.org. I don't know about these. What was written?”

While witness Bayram Özbek was providing information about these articles, one of the defense attorneys, Ali Soykan, pointed out the following:

“The Prosecutor said, ‘I haven't seen them,’ but there are e-mail correspondences between the late Necip Hablemitoğlu and Mehmet Eymür in the supplementary folders of the indictment.”

COURT PANEL TO VISIT HIS HOME

According to the indictment, the Hablemitoğlu assassination was organized by Enver Altaylı and the fugitive defendant of the case, FETÖ's so-called Turkey imam Mustafa Özcan, because of the book titled 'Köstebek' (The Mole), and was carried out by the “Levent Göktaş organization.”

The most important basis for this connection was the statements of former Health Minister Halil Şıvgın. In his statement to the Prosecutor, Şıvgın said that the late Necip Hablemitoğlu came to his office with former AKP MP Ramazan Toprak, that Enver Altaylı, who arrived as they were leaving, asked “Who are they?”, and that he explained it to him, thus learning for the first time from him that Altaylı knew Hablemitoğlu was working on the Gülen community, and stated the following:

“After this incident, perhaps in September or October of 2002, Enver Altaylı introduced me to Mustafa Özcan after a program I attended on Samanyolu TV. Although Enver Altaylı had called Necip Hablemitoğlu's work ‘trivial’ in my office, he must have portrayed it differently to Mustafa Özcan, because Mustafa Özcan asked me, ‘A docent is doing a study on this, how can we meet with this person?’ I said, ‘I will not get involved in this matter, it does not concern me, if he wants to talk, he can talk.’ After the meeting, I informed Necip Hablemitoğlu about this.”

However, both Ramazan Toprak and Enver Altaylı denied this statement by Şıvgın. Toprak stated that he had no meetings or contact with Enver Altaylı and said, “I think Halil Bey may have confused past events due to his diabetes.” Enver Altaylı also stated that Şıvgın had asked him to mediate to bring Mustafa Özcan and Hablemitoğlu together, but that he had said he could not help, adding, “I think Şıvgın's main purpose is to show that he is not a FETÖ member.”

It was after these statements that the Court decided to hear Halil Şıvgın as a witness. However, upon the submission of a report stating that Şıvgın was seriously ill, it was decided that a delegation consisting of a deputy judge and some lawyers would go to Şıvgın's home to take his statement. When information arrived that Şıvgın was in intensive care, a decision was made to have him brought by force with an ambulance.

It was planned for 74-year-old Şıvgın to be heard in this week's hearings. However, he again sent a doctor's report stating, “He cannot testify.” Following this development, it was learned that the Court plans to have a delegation consisting of three judges and some lawyers go to Şıvgın's home before the next session with an interim decision to be issued tomorrow to take his statement.