The Hablemitoğlu assassination trial reaches its final stage... The prosecutor was accused and requested to withdraw...

The Necip Hablemitoğlu assassination trial, which has been ongoing for approximately 5 years including the investigation process, has reached its final stage. While some interim decisions made by the court have not yet been fulfilled, the indictment and trial prosecutor requested that the file be submitted to him to present his final opinion.

The court accepted this request. While the Hablemitoğlu family's lawyer, Ersan Barkın, reacted to the prosecutor's decision of non-prosecution (KYOK) regarding the three suspects thought to have followed Hablemitoğlu at Migros on the day of the assassination, saying, "You cannot get results regarding these suspicious individuals by only looking at credit cards. No one is stupid. If we cannot find these people with the state's resources, the decision to be made will result in a significant deficiency," the defense attorneys also criticized Prosecutor Zafer Ergün with harsh expressions and requested his withdrawal from the case. The court decided to continue the detention of Nuri Gökhan Bozkır, the only detained defendant in the case.

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

After the Presiding Judge read the documents received in the file, the Hablemitoğlu family's lawyer, Ersan Barkın, took the floor and criticized the decision of non-prosecution regarding the three suspects at Migros, emphasizing that those responsible are rarely fully uncovered in political assassination cases and that some officials in the state apparatus are only in favor of opening a case, and said the following:

"I am not accusing the Public Prosecutor; he has conducted an investigation, but you cannot get results regarding these suspicious individuals by only looking at credit cards. No one is stupid. We have examined the Migros security cameras many times. It is seen that they did not shop with credit cards based on the time the relevant suspects spent at the market checkout. If we cannot find the people we see with the naked eye using intelligence activities or counter-terrorism capabilities, the decision to be made will result in a significant deficiency. For the decision to find a response in the public conscience, these three people need to be identified. But this non-prosecution decision will create great uncertainty. The Republic of Turkey must not allow this. The saying 'If we pull the brick, we will be left under the wall' is the most concrete manifestation of political assassinations remaining inconclusive. If there is still a state agent in the hall, someone following this case, there are a few steps left to reveal this uncertainty. We want these uncertainties to be eliminated and the file to be completed."

After Attorney Barkın, Prosecutor Zafer Ergün stated that there were no requests to expand the prosecution as of the stage reached in the trial, and requested that the file be submitted to the Prosecutor's Office for the preparation of the final opinion, and also that the detention of Nuri Gökhan Bozkır and the judicial control measures of the other defendants be continued.

When asked for his statements against the Prosecutor's opinion, defendant Levent Göktaş stated that he agreed with the views of Attorney Ersan Barkın and said, "As a jurist, I say; the Prosecutor should not issue a non-prosecution decision, the file should be left open or the investigation should continue. These three suspects must be found." While Göktaş requested that the mission result report regarding the period between November 17, 2002, and May 19, 2003, when Tarkan Mumcuoğlu was in Kazakhstan, be requested from the General Staff Operations Department Special Forces Command, he also stated that the logs in this report contain what was done daily and hourly.

"IT IS AN HONOR THAT THE PROSECUTOR REQUESTS THE CONTINUATION OF MY DETENTION"

Defendant Aydın Köstem reminded that he is the only defendant who has been under electronic monitoring for 2 years and requested that this punishment be ended, while Nuri Gökhan Bozkır spoke as follows:

"I am the only one who is detained, accused of following the late Necip Hablemitoğlu, and for whom the least punishment is requested. I am a detainee of a case where my time served is already complete. Moreover, there is no evidence that I followed him. How can I follow a person with whom I have no temporal or spatial connection? There is much to say, but I cannot bring myself to say it. It is an honor that the prosecutor, who released those with a definitive Bylock or Bank Asya account in the FETÖ case during the investigation phase, requests my continued detention."

While defendant Tarkan Mumcuoğlu did not make any statement, his lawyer Eren Turan directed the following criticisms at Prosecutor Zafer Ergün:

"The non-prosecution decision was a declaration of the obvious and a decision we expected. In the previous criminal complaint regarding the suspects outside, he had already issued a non-prosecution decision in a hurry without even seeing the need to conduct an investigation. In the second one, in the investigation he conducted with effort, he went through credit cards and reached a conclusion. A non-prosecution decision cannot be issued in such an investigation; it should be sent to another office as a cold case. The biggest basis of the indictment was Tarkan Mumcuoğlu's call from the TRNC. We revealed that this was due to the international call transfer system. Upon this, the Court wrote to the TRNC for the identification of the call number in question. While the answer to this has not yet arrived, he cannot give up on bringing these records without showing any justification. He has to explain why he gave up. He is giving up on his own evidence and not explaining the reason for it. Now, will you say that call transfer has no effect on the merits? Then why did you accuse them with this evidence, and why are you giving up now? Even though the clarified images are in the file, the Prosecutor ignored them until we revealed the images and did not conduct any investigation into the suspects. Do you want us to believe that 25-year-old bank credit records are kept? These suspects are asked to the Special Forces Command, but why are they not asked to the Police? If the prosecutor's office is not investigating the identified people, let the court investigate. Let a letter be written to the Ankara Police Department and ask if these people were among the police officers on duty at that time. Why didn't you show these photos to the witnesses? Are you afraid that they will identify them and the defendants here will be found innocent? The prosecutor's office is issuing a non-prosecution decision as if it were saving goods from a fire. This means he is preparing the file as he pleases. The prosecutor will also give his opinion not on behalf of the public, but to defend his own indictment."

Mumcuoğlu's other lawyer, Enes Taner, also noted the following:

"Was the non-prosecution decision given because the identities of the suspects could not be determined, or because it was determined that they were not involved in the crime? If their identities could not be determined, a non-prosecution decision cannot be issued. If it was determined that they were not involved in the crime, we are curious about how he made this decision since the act of following is established."

"THE BIGGEST OBSTACLE TO CLARIFYING THE ASSASSINATION"

Levent Göktaş's lawyer, Ali Soykan, explained that there is no regulation in our legislation regarding the recusal or withdrawal of a prosecutor, and that this stems from the belief that "the prosecutor acts on behalf of the public," and then stated that Prosecutor Zafer Ergün violated all of the Budapest Principles accepted by the HSK, and therefore requested his withdrawal from the case or that these requests be reported to the HSK. Attorney Soykan continued as follows:

"The biggest obstacle to clarifying this assassination is Prosecutor Zafer Ergün. Since the beginning of the trial, he has acted like a victim of the case. He hid or destroyed evidence. He did not hesitate to threaten the defendants. He took the evidence from the judicial repository and broke its seal to examine it. This is a criminal event. It is Zafer Ergün who made false statements not to us, but to the court. Because of him, the case has become like a joke. But he is still sitting on your right. There is no need for him to request time. It is clear what kind of opinion he will give."

Defendant Enver Altaylı was content with stating that he agreed with the requests of Ersan Barkın and other lawyers.

Nuri Gökhan Bozkır's lawyer, Hacer Ural, said; "The 364-page indictment was based on the statements of journalist Zihni Çakır. Who is Zihni Çakır? After that, Abdurrahman Şimşek appeared on the scene. He made an interview with Nuri Gökhan Bozkır that he hid for 2 years. The indictment was built on journalists, no effective investigation was conducted. Nuri Gökhan Bozkır is the one who has been detained for the longest time for violating judicial control. Do not say 'strong suspicion of crime' in the decision to continue detention, write the material justifications for his arrest. While the court is looking for the perpetrators outside for the second time, I guess they want to give a sentence by saying 'I have these just in case'."

"BEFORE THE PROSECUTOR LEAVES WITH THE AUTUMN DECREE"

Finally, Bozkır's other lawyer, Emrah Yücel, made a statement and explained the following:

"This indictment, which is like a bad movie script, a bad novel text, is the greatest disrespect to the late Hablemitoğlu. We are talking about the most interesting trial in the history of the Republic. We saw for the first time that journalists were used as judicial law enforcement. Nuri Gökhan Bozkır is in Sincan, but he does not appear in Turkey in any official document. He said he was brought in a coffin and was tortured. For these to be called lies, the state must prove the Interpol entry; which plane he came on and at what time. Where was he held for 25 days before being handed over to the Police? Although he was given a guarantee that he would not be tried in another case in Ukraine, the Prosecutor said 'No, it was not given' in the onion truck case in Urfa. It is established that the Prosecutor committed the crime of making false statements. The court's prosecutor could only endure this indictment for 4 days. On the fifth day, Zafer Ergün started to enter the case. What is the Prosecutor's hurry? Does he want to give an opinion in line with his indictment before the autumn decree comes? There is nothing left to say anymore."

After the break given after the completion of the statements, the Presiding Judge announced that it was decided to continue the detention of Nuri Gökhan Bozkır and the judicial control measures of the other defendants, to ask for the answer to the letter written to the TRNC regarding the international call system, to separate the files of the fugitive defendants of the case, Mustafa Özcan and Serhat Ilıcak, to reject all requests of the defendants and their lawyers, especially the Prosecutor's withdrawal, and to submit the file to the Prosecutor's Office to prepare the final opinion.

The hearing was adjourned to October 20-24.

Müyesser YILDIZ June 27, 2025

News Source: 12punto