ABK Case: 'It was as if Devlet Bahçeli was the one being interrogated'

At today's session of the trial, held at the Ankara 32nd High Criminal Court in the Sincan Prison complex, lawyers for Serdar Sertçelik presented their defense.

First, Attorney Alperen Ekinci, speaking on behalf of the Bora Kaplan criminal organization case in which Sertçelik is accused of being an organization leader, emphasized that Sertçelik was not even called to testify as a witness in this investigation, which began in 2022, and that as of September 15, 2023, his name was not on the list of organization leaders and members. He stated the following:

"Because it is a fabricated, inflated file, new witnesses and evidence are needed. Ten days later, they remember him and establish contact with Serdar Sertçelik through Nurullah Özgür Kopuk. Then, through pressure, threats, and blackmail, he is made a secret witness. Instead of reaching the material truth, they are trying to produce evidence in accordance with a pre-planned scenario. So much so that even before Serdar Sertçelik returned from the TRNC, research had already been conducted on Yüksel Kocaman and Osman Arslan. For these reasons, it is a constitutional necessity that the M7 secret witness statement be removed from the file and not be used as a basis for the verdict. The correspondence between the police officers is there; how else are we to prove it? There is a perception that Serdar Sertçelik returned on January 31, 2026, and changed his mind. However, he sent four petitions from Hungary stating that these statements did not belong to him and requested to be heard via rogatory commission. Look at the situation; he had no crimes until he became M7, and after becoming M7, they made him the right-hand man of the so-called organization."

"THIS FILE IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS"

Attorney Ekinci also described what happened after Serdar Sertçelik returned from Hungary:

"His brother called me and asked me to be his lawyer. In the meantime, Attorney Ilgaz Teziç had been called from the Bar Association (CMK). When I went to the courthouse, my identity was checked three times, and I was asked who sent me. When I wanted to meet with my client, Prosecutor Mustafa Kaya did not allow it. For this reason, I was not present in the so-called minutes taken on January 31. But if you look at the camera and HTS records, it will be seen that I was there. They researched me, and I know who Mustafa Kaya is, but... The prosecutor asked Serdar Sertçelik, 'Wouldn't it be better with Ms. Ilgaz?' Why wouldn't it be? What is the purpose of asking this question? On January 31, he did not give us the file to persuade and intimidate Serdar Sertçelik; but he gave it to Kerem Gökay Öner and Nurullah Özgür Kopuk. When I attended his statement a week later, the Prosecutor said, 'What did you do, Serdar, did you think about it?' I asked what he was supposed to think about. Prosecutor Mustafa Kaya asked me not to intervene. Serdar Sertçelik's first sentence was, 'The phone does not belong to me.' Without showing us any records, he only asked, 'Did you talk to your mother and father?' Why? Because he wanted Serdar Sertçelik to benefit from effective remorse, and said he would release him if he did so. Otherwise, the file would collapse, and the accused directors would be convicted. He took such a statement that it was as if we were in the political branch. And the one being interrogated was not Serdar Sertçelik, but MHP Chairman Mr. Devlet Bahçeli, the then-Deputy Chairman Ulvi İzzet Yönter, and Necmi Yıldırım. 'You transferred money,' etc... I asked him to record his statement that the phone did not belong to him, and I said, 'Do not ask any questions for which you will not write the answer. If you are not going to mention these names, why are you asking?' but he did not record any of the answers. He asked about my ideological views. When I said I was a nationalist, he said, 'I understand your sensitivity, but this file is not what you think it is.' It was as if I was being asked to withdraw from the case because my worldview was not suitable."

"WAS PERMISSION SOUGHT FROM HEADQUARTERS?"

Following these allegations, Attorney Alperen Ekinci, who requested that investigation prosecutor Mustafa Kaya be heard as a witness, asked these striking questions:

"Was the 'bagged' phone taken to the Headquarters in the 14 days before it was delivered to the prosecutor's office? Was an attempt made to get permission? Were they kicked out or not?"

Attorney Ekinci continued:

"It is unclear who found the phone. First a petition is filed regarding the phone being found, and two days later the phone is handed over. They look at who the petition will fall to, will it be Mustafa Kaya? If it hadn't fallen to Mustafa Kaya, would it not have been given? If so, why? Who is the prosecutor and the clerk who did the distribution that day? Did Serdar Sertçelik have to accept this phone in some way? The date order in the WhatsApp correspondence on the found phone does not match; it appears that a call was made, but this number is not in the call list. Doesn't this alone show that there is manipulation on the phone? If the prosecutor, the judge, and the lawyer all look, they will see it. If that's the case, let me do the same thing here, bring it and hang it on the President's door. Are we going to say, 'Serdar Sertçelik sent another phone'? We don't need to see it, let's give the original of this phone to an expert. Why are we refraining? Currently, the experts can neither verify nor refute the correspondence here because there is no database. The only truth is this: Serdar Sertçelik was in prison on the dates the alleged correspondence took place; he has no possibility of writing these or doing so through third parties. The purpose of the found phone is to revive this file a little and to save and clear the police officers. I don't care if they are punished or acquitted; take your dirty hands off this file, let justice be served, and whoever this phone belongs to, let's try them."

"THEY HAVE ESTABLISHED ORGANIZED CRIME BUREAU LAW"

Ilgaz Teziş, who was called from the Bar Association for Serdar Sertçelik's interrogation after he returned from Hungary and later undertook Sertçelik's legal representation, also said:

"When I went, I didn't know the prosecutor, Mr. Serdar, or Mr. Alperen, nor did I know the file. Serdar Sertçelik's first words to the prosecutor were, 'We are among ourselves, there is no need to hide. Didn't you take my secret witness statement? I haven't seen the secret witness prosecutor.' The prosecutor said they examined the camera records and that Serdar Sertçelik was here for 3 hours. Isn't this an answer contrary to normal communication? Let's assume he was in the prosecutor's office for the entire 3 hours and 20 minutes; it is a very short time for a 19-page secret witness statement to be given, for the clerk to write it, for corrections, and for signatures. We didn't answer questions in the interrogation on January 31, there was no writing phase, it took 7 hours. In the interrogation a week later, a 3-page statement took exactly 9 hours. On January 31, when the prosecutor told Serdar Sertçelik that he would have him released if he benefited from effective remorse, after stating to Serdar Sertçelik that this was an unlawful promise, thinking he wouldn't give me power of attorney anyway, I said, 'If there is a need in the future, I will testify about this unlawful promise.' That's why I want to testify as a sworn witness now."

Continuing his defense, Attorney Teziş drew attention to the illegalities experienced during the process of making Serdar Sertçelik a secret witness with the code M7, saying, "They have made doing unlawful things a procedure. They have established Organized Crime Bureau law."

Attorney Ilgaz Teziş recalled that while Sertçelik was still in Hungary, he declared that the found phone did not belong to him without knowing whether the contents were in his favor or against him, and claimed that this phone was nothing more than a project by the police to clear themselves.

After drawing attention to the contradictions in the process regarding the found phone, Attorney Teziş said, "What is the status of this phone? We still haven't been able to learn its fate. Is it in the judicial repository, or is it lost? We have no answer," and requested that an investigation be initiated against Mustafa Öztaş, whose fingerprints were found on this phone and the note paper inside it.

"Mustafa Öztaş Said 'Accept It If They Ask'"

After the lawyers completed their statements, two individuals who were stated to have spoken and corresponded with Serdar Sertçelik on the found phone were heard as witnesses via SEGBİS connection.

One of these witnesses, S.Z., said that when his father was sick in 2020-2021, he asked for help from Serdar Sertçelik via his Instagram account, and that he had his father's surgery performed, but they never met face-to-face.

Upon the question of the Court President, he stated that he established contact with Sertçelik for the second time in 2025 when his military service was assigned to Ankara, that Sertçelik said, "I am not in Ankara," and that he later sent messages to accounts that appeared to belong to him, but there was no response.

The second witness, C.K., explained that he knew Serdar Sertçelik, but that they had not met or spoken at all after a fight 7-8 years ago, that they were like enemies, and that no alleged message had been received and no meeting had taken place.

Duran Göçer, the lawyer for one of the defendants, Önder Polat, asked C.K., "Do you know Mustafa Öztaş? Was there anyone who gave you suggestions or directed you regarding the statement you gave during the investigation phase?" The following dialogue then took place:

C.K.: I know Mustafa Öztaş, he is a close friend of mine. He said, "If they call you from the police or the prosecutor's office, accept it." I asked what I was supposed to accept. He said, "We'll talk face-to-face."

President: How did you talk?

C.K.: Over the phone.

President: Date?

C.K.: It has been over a year. I gave a statement to the Gendarmerie 4-5 months ago. It was 5-6 months ago.

President: Did you meet face-to-face later?

C.K.: No. He went abroad or something. He was someone who went to Paris and such.

President: When did you last meet?

C.K.: It has been 10-15 days.

President: Did he say anything?

C.K.: He never brought up this topic.

Prosecutor: Didn't he give details about the message?

C.K.: He said he would explain it face-to-face, but the subject never came up again.

Prosecutor: Didn't you ask?

C.K.: I saw him once after the statement, he was in a crowded environment. The subject didn't come up.

When the defendants and their lawyers were asked what they had to say against the witness statements, Serdar Sertçelik said, "God somehow gets them tangled up in their own feet," while Bora Kaplan spoke as follows:

"When Mustafa Öztaş called C.K., he was probably drunk. He loses himself when he starts drinking after 7 in the evening. When he woke up in the morning, he didn't even remember calling. We have said everything that needs to be said about the phone. I leave it to your conscience now."

While the lawyers for Bora Kaplan and Serdar Sertçelik requested that a criminal complaint be filed against Mustafa Öztaş for attempting to influence a witness, Attorney Ilgaz Teziş repeated his request for Sertçelik to be heard as a sworn witness to explain what happened during his prosecutor's statement.

Prosecutor Requested Sertçelik's Release from Plunder Charge

After a break of approximately 4 hours, the Prosecutor, who presented his opinion, expressed the view that most of the requests of the defendants and lawyers should be rejected, while requesting that Serdar Sertçelik be released only from the plunder incident against Muhammet Sağ, and that the detention of Sertçelik and Bora Kaplan for other crimes should continue.

The prosecutor requested that the file regarding the Cevheri Güven case, which resulted in the acquittal of police chiefs, be brought, that an examination be made regarding the time shift on the found phone, that Attorney Ilgaz Teziş be heard as a witness, that the request for prosecutor Mustafa Kaya to be heard as a witness be rejected, and that the removal of Serdar Sertçelik's M7-coded secret witness statement from the file and the filing of a criminal complaint against Mustafa Öztaş be evaluated at the end of the trial.

When asked for his statement against the opinion, Serdar Sertçelik said, "For the sake of God, release me from the phone charge. We explained everything. Does there have to be a camera recording of Mustafa Öztaş making this phone?" while Bora Kaplan reacted to the request for the rejection of the most important demands by saying, "It's mind-boggling. There is no such understanding of law."

One of the lawyers, Alperen Ekinci, stated that the prosecutor made requests aimed at closing the file and that nothing could be achieved this way, reminding that they had requests for the original of the found phone to be examined. Attorney Yakup Kılıç emphasized that while it is not even known where the found phone is, there is talk of evidence tampering.

After a 1.5-hour break, the Court President announced that it was decided to reject most of the requests, primarily the hearing of Serdar Sertçelik's lawyer Ilgaz Teziş as a sworn witness, that the crimes of false testimony and influencing a witness regarding Mustafa Öztaş and the removal of M7's statement from the file would be evaluated together with the verdict, and that the original of the found phone would be sent to an expert after other examinations were completed. The court, which decided to release Serdar Sertçelik from the plunder incidents against Muhammet Sağ and Mehmet Taha Ergin and to continue the detention of Sertçelik and Bora Kaplan for all other crimes, adjourned the hearing to September 3-4.

When Bora Kaplan reacted to the decisions, the President said, "We accepted most of your requests."

Müyesser YILDIZ

June 11, 2026

News Source: Müyesser Yıldız