March 28, 2014

Police officer warns prosecutor of fabricated Hizmet evidence

An unnamed police officer who is said to be working at the National Police Department's Anti-smuggling and Organized Crime Bureau (KOM) has sent a letter to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office in which he discloses the ongoing efforts to fabricate evidence to serve as the legal grounds for a police operation against the faith-based Hizmet movement.

The police officer said he had been appointed to KOM following the corruption and bribery operation of Dec. 17, 2013. “We are being forced to produce fake evidence against the Hizmet movement as well as take action against the movement,” he wrote in the letter.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is fighting claims of corruption and bribery, has alleged that the Hizmet movement, which he often calls the “parallel structure,” was behind the Dec. 17 operation, saying the movement wants to overthrow his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government. On various occasions the prime minister has vowed to launch a crackdown on the Hizmet movement after the March 30 municipal elections.

“I have not witnessed any period similar to the post-Dec. 17 period during the time I have served as a police officer. I can state that the police force had not been subjected to such major pressure and it had not been paralyzed or rendered ineffective before. Nor had the police force been forced to go outside the boundaries of the law before or treat some groups as criminals. I cannot tolerate being forced to betray our profession. And I know that many of my friends feel the same way,” the letter said.

The letter was leaked to the Turkish media on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear when the letter had reached the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.

According to the police officer, he and his colleagues are being forced by their superiors to review past criminal cases and find elements that might serve as a legal basis to support a case against alleged irregular activities of the Hizmet movement, which is inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. “A prosecutor whom I believe is working on this matter for certain reasons has sent some [criminal] files that had been concluded in the past to our bureau,” he said. The police officer noted that it is a crime both to take those files from the courthouse and to review them. “We were forced and are being forced to lay a trap for innocent people and a [religious] community by fabricating false evidence," he added.

The police officer also said KOM officers are urged to attribute a scandal related to the State Personnel Examination (KPSS) held in 2010 to the Hizmet movement.

In September of 2010, around 3,200 people answered most or all of the questions on the test correctly -- a first in Turkey -- leading to allegations that some of the candidates had cheated during the test or obtained the questions in advance. Some of the most successful candidates were either married couples or friends sharing the same house, which increased speculation that they had cheated.

The police officer stated that they are also being asked to fabricate evidence to attribute alleged misconduct in other past exams to the Hizmet movement. “The law is being crushed underfoot,” he noted.

According to the police officer, an operation against the Hizmet movement had been planned for after the March 30 elections, but the plans have now changed and the operation is likely to be staged before the elections. “We have been told that the decision to launch the operation before the elections comes from top political figures. Thus, the fabricated evidence is being prepared quickly. The prosecutor, as I previously said, has certain reasons [for the operation], and an operation to discredit the [Hizmet] community in the people's eyes seems very close.”

Twitter user: Gov't held meetings on Hizmet operation

Pseudonymous Twitter user Fuat Avni, who has more than 500,000 followers, claimed on Thursday that government members had held several meetings on Wednesday night to discuss the details of an operation to be launched against the Hizmet movement.

“Several meetings were held last night. The prime minister does not know the boundaries of unlawful tapes [illegal wiretapping.] He has exaggerated the issue,” wrote Avni. According to the user, the meetings' aim was to fabricate folders of false evidence against the Hizmet movement. He also said that prosecutor Ali Koyuncu, who had been in charge of an ongoing investigation into the Hizmet movement, was immediately removed from the case by the prime minister after he voiced his misgivings about the investigation. “Prosecutor Cafer Güven Kara has been assigned in lieu of Koyuncu. They [the government] might postpone the operation until after the [March 30] elections,” Avni noted.

“Everything has been turned upside down after the removal of the prosecutor [Koyuncu]. The prime minister and his advisors were not able to sleep for even three hours last night. No prosecutor will agree to cooperate with the unlawfulness they are planning [the anti-Hizmet operation],” Avni added.

Published on Today's Zaman, 27 March 2014, Thursday

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