Murat Ağırel and Timur Soykan released: They made their first statements

The police procedures for journalists Timur Soykan and Murat Ağırel, who were detained early in the morning on charges of "threat" and "blackmail," have been completed.

Timur Soykan and Murat Ağırel, who were referred to the Criminal Court of Peace with a request for arrest, were released under judicial control.

It was learned that the detention order for the journalists was issued based on allegations that they committed the crimes of "threat" and "blackmail" during the transfer and acquisition process of the television channel Flash Haber TV.

Police detained the two journalists by searching their homes early in the morning and took them to the Vatan campus of the Istanbul Police Department following health checks.

RELEASED UNDER JUDICIAL CONTROL

It was reported that Timur Soykan and Murat Ağırel were referred to the courthouse after their procedures at the Vatan Police Department were completed. Soykan and Ağırel were released by the Criminal Court of Peace, to which they had been referred with a request for arrest. A travel ban and judicial control conditions were imposed on the two journalists.

THE TWO JOURNALISTS MADE STATEMENTS AFTER THEIR RELEASE

TİMUR SOYKAN

They are leveling unbelievable accusations, and the prosecutor's office is taking this seriously, turning journalism into a crime. Someone who is alleged to be an illegal betting baron bought a bank, was able to buy a television channel...

How did MASAK allow this? This is major news everywhere in the world, but it is incredible how reporting on this has turned into this situation...

I was supposed to receive an award, but the police raided our homes and we were brought here; the prosecutor referred us here without even taking our statements. Because of the BDDK wedding, I was going to get news; we experienced this injustice today due to the nonsensical, irrational claims of a person who was seen giving jewelry to a deputy chairman and later turned out to be on trial.

We are glad we were not arrested because we are living in a period where the law is being trampled upon. We must not normalize the demand for the arrest of journalists for conducting interviews...

We will continue to investigate all scandals and pursue the truth, and we will definitely emerge victorious from our struggle.

MURAT AĞIREL

They said, "We will take your statement after the holiday," and later we applied, and they said, "There is no rush," but we woke up to the police ringing our doorbell at 6 a.m. However, the person I stated I had questions for and said should use their right of reply invited me to the holding building; I do not find this ethically correct and told them, 'Please come to the newspaper'...

He complained, calling this a 'superior attitude'; we conducted an interview where both of us recorded the audio. We asked about the sale of Flash TV, we requested the records of these...

There were tapes, we recorded the interview...

There is nothing in the file! There is a piece of paper and the police's questions... We presented the evidence to the presiding judge... In the recording, he says, 'You are the ones who will understand me best,' and then he files a complaint.

We will not let this file go; on the day we said our lawyers would come here and we wanted to give a statement, he said we threatened him. We were tried on this file, and something is being fabricated here.

We said journalism is not a crime; they are poisoning the children of this country with illegal betting and drugs.

We have been wandering the police corridors for 16 hours without evidence based on the complaint of a person being tried for money laundering. But we will not take a step back from telling what we know to be true.

No journalist will turn back from this path either.

News Source: 12punto