Hablemitoğlu assassination trial: Prosecutor solves the Cyprus mystery...

Witness testimonies continued on the fourth day of the trial concerning the assassination of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Necip Hablemitoğlu. Retired Colonel Tan Dervişoğlu, who served in the Special Forces Command for 28 years, dismissed the allegations made by Gökhan Nuri Bozkır as entirely fabricated, describing Bozkır as, "An officer with a personality disorder and character flaws who should not have been in the Turkish Armed Forces, let alone the Special Forces Regiment. He was a spineless person who could be used by anyone."

Meanwhile, Prosecutor Zafer Ergün, who had previously claimed that defendant Tarkan Mumcuoğlu was the triggerman in the Hablemitoğlu assassination based on the fact that TRNC (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) numbers appeared on his wife's phone during his calls from Kazakhstan, acknowledged that the calls from Kazakhstan might have been routed through Cyprus because it was cheaper. Upon this, Mumcuoğlu's lawyer remarked, "For the first time, we are in agreement with the Prosecutor."

Tan Dervişoğlu, the first witness heard in today's 17th session of the trial held at the Ankara 28th High Criminal Court, stated that he did not witness any different structuring within the Special Forces Command either during the Hablemitoğlu assassination or in the subsequent period, and characterized Gökhan Nuri Bozkır's claims as "completely fictional and nonsensical."

Tan Dervişoğlu, who went to Kazakhstan as a team commander before Tarkan Mumcuoğlu and handed over the duty to him, explained in response to questions how they went to the country, where they stayed, and how they called their families in Turkey. When Dervişoğlu mentioned that they bought a card for phone calls, Gökhan Nuri Bozkır's lawyer, Emrah Tuncer, handed a call-forwarding card to the Presiding Judge and asked, "Is this it?" The judge then asked how it was used and where the line appeared to be routed from when a call was made. While Dervişoğlu and the lawyers were explaining this, Prosecutor Zafer Ergün, who had claimed that Mumcuoğlu had secretly come to Ankara via the TRNC to kill Hablemitoğlu based on the appearance of TRNC numbers in the calls Mumcuoğlu made while on duty in Kazakhstan, said the following:

"In these card-based calls, whichever is cheaper is used for routing. They generally use Cyprus."

Following this, one of Mumcuoğlu's lawyers, Eren Turan, said, "For the first time, we are in agreement with the Prosecutor," while lawyer Enes Taner noted that they had submitted an expert report regarding these calls, which revealed that most of them were call-forwarding numbers.

This news is being updated.