Turkish graft investigation for dummies

Sadık Çınar*

Turkey is currently experiencing enormous political turmoil -- maybe the greatest it has ever felt.

This might seem like a big claim about a country that has experienced several coups and failed coups. But now the country's political system, judiciary and policing are being attacked and blocked from carrying out their duties according to the constitution and laws of Turkey. Some go as far as referring to Turkey as a “failed state.” It is not there yet, but if it continues on this trajectory, no one can guarantee that it will not become one in the future.

Of late (starting on Dec. 17, 2013) the country has been being shaken by two corruption investigations involving some businessmen, ministers from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and their sons. The AK Party's response has been to attack the judiciary on the pretext that it has been infiltrated by the Fethullah Gülen-inspired Hizmet movement and accuse the movement of concocting the investigations as a means of overthrowing the government. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and ministers in the AK Party government argue that these investigations are an international plot to topple the government; this “plot” is supposedly orchestrated by “external” and “internal” enemies who are deeply uncomfortable with a strong and independent Turkey and who also do not want Turkey to resolve the Kurdish Issue. As “external enemies,” Erdoğan and his ministers have directly and indirectly referred to the US, Israel and the European Union. As internal enemies he indicates the Hizmet movement, opposition parties and Gezi Park protestors. Similarly, the AK Party government is taking a number of steps to silence and control the judiciary.

Since Hizmet has been vilified and designated Public Enemy Number One, a wide variety of commentators, including Hizmet movement media outlets and Gülen himself, have denounced the prime minister's actions as undemocratic and unlawful, and there has been an outcry throughout the social and conventional media. The Hizmet movement has long been supportive of the AK Party's pro-democratic reforms and steps. However, given the recent leanings in the ruling party toward authoritarian and anti-democratic measures, that continuing support is no longer assured.

To help international readers (especially those in the UK) understand the current events in Turkey, I will substitute the equivalent or similar personas in the UK for all the actors in the graft investigation and retell the tale. Of course, some institutions, posts and procedures do not correspond exactly to those in the UK, but I believe this account will help clarify the situation for readers and add a little humor to the appalling case.

On Dec. 17, 2013, on orders from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) (1), the London Metropolitan Police moved to arrest almost 50 suspects, including the son of Theresa May, the son of Danny Alexander, Royal Bank of Scotland CEO Ross McEwan, UK resident and business tycoon of Russian descent Roman Abramovich, other businessmen and a large number of bureaucrats. Reportedly, the investigation had commenced approximately 14 months previously. The CPS charged the suspects with forming a corrupt criminal enterprise in order to obtain public sector contracts unfairly and with engaging in bribery and money laundering. The CPS also charged the CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland with using the bank to transfer £50 billion in order to bypass international financial sanctions imposed on Iran. The money was laundered by offshore pseudo-companies belonging to Abramovich, and McEwan received a hefty bribe for his part in the process.

In the searches of the homes of McEwan and May's son, police found approximately £6 million in cash stacked in shoeboxes and safes. Six safes packed with cash were found in the house of May's son.

Twenty-four of the 50 suspects were remanded in custody by order of the court. As soon as the investigation was revealed, Prime Minister David Cameron issued a press statement claiming it was a plot orchestrated by home and international enemies to topple the Conservative-led government. He accused Russia, Germany and Iran of masterminding the plot and implied he might expel the Russian ambassador to the UK from British soil. He went on to claim that those international powers were using the Roman Catholics in the UK to infiltrate the top levels of the UK judiciary and police (2). He declared war on the Roman Catholic Church and threatened to enter their “dens.” He suggested that the Roman Catholic Church had formed a treacherous state-within-the-state and was embroiled in a dirty coalition with the international enemies of the UK. Cameron further claimed that all the CPS and police personnel who had taken part in the Dec. 17 operation were members of the Roman Catholic Church and taking orders from the Church, not from their chiefs in the CPS or police. He vowed that he would hunt down all Roman Catholics within the state apparatus.

Simultaneously, May started a witch-hunt in the police force. In the early hours of the corruption investigation, she reassigned all police personnel who had been engaged in the operation. Following this move, she started a wider witch-hunt in the police force in various UK cities. In Birmingham, Manchester, Southampton, York and Leicester, within one week of the revelation of the investigation and without any disciplinary procedure being carried out, she reassigned 2,000 police chiefs and officers who were alleged to be Roman Catholic. In doing this, she used the information from personal profiling that had earlier been carried out illegally by MI5. Those police chefs and officers reassigned were mostly from the organized crime division of the police force.

Next, she removed the chief constable of the London Metropolitan Police and assigned the leader of Sheffield Council, who has no policing experience whatsoever, to head the largest police force in the country. May then made a statement about the six safes found in the home of her son, claiming that her son had recently closed his consultancy business, for which he had obtained the safes, and so brought them back to his flat, as he was a very thrifty person and wanted to sell the safes on eBay. She made no mention of the money inside the safes.

In his statement to the police, McEwan, CEO of RBS, said the money found stacked inside the shoeboxes in his home comprised donations for building a new free school -- the form of schooling favored by the government. He said he had not deposited the money in a bank account because he still needed to give a name to each donation and deposit it all in a certain account which had not yet been set up.

On Dec. 25, the public became aware of another investigation conducted by a different division of the CPS in London. Prosecutors obtained a court warrant for the arrest of a further 41 suspects alleged to be involved in bribery and corruption in tendering for public service contracts. The court ordered the Metropolitan Police to detain the suspects but, interestingly, the newly appointed chief constable refused to carry out the search and arrest warrants issued by the court. The most shocking element of the news was that the son of Prime Minister Cameron was among the suspects involved in the second corruption investigation. And instead of having his orders carried out, the state prosecutor leading the case was immediately reassigned.

After eight days of turmoil, all the ministers named in the investigation resigned from their posts. Cameron announced his largest cabinet reshuffle and appointed 10 new ministers to the cabinet. Interestingly, the permanent secretary to the prime ministry was appointed as the new secretary of state for the home department.

This new secretary of state carried on the witch-hunt inside the police force. Within two weeks he had reassigned a further 2,000 police officers all over the UK. He even reassigned the canteen workers of the organized crime department of the Metropolitan Police.

In the meantime, Cameron held a public rally and continued to claim that the operation was a coup plot against the Conservative government and that the plot was being carried out by those who do not wish Great Britain to prosper. He accused the Roman Catholic Church of infiltrating every department of the civil service, of being allied with the enemies of the British people and of pursuing the interests of the Church rather than the public interest. He vowed to identify every member of the dirty gang and hunt them all down.

The above is not happening and could not happen thus in the UK. It is, however, happening in Turkey before our very eyes. Many have started to follow events in Turkey just because of the sheer implausibility of the accusations being made and the unfolding events. Some have stopped following Turkey on mental health grounds for the same reason. If the above would be unfathomable and wrong in the UK, ask yourself why it is not so unfathomable or wrong in Turkey. Are democracy and the rule of law more dispensable in some parts of the world than others?

1 In the initial setting of my tale this is a convenient fiction. In reality in the UK, this decision is taken by the local Crime Assessment Unit. In Turkey, it is taken by a public prosecutor, who then goes on to direct any investigation, if it proceeds.

2 Here I use the Roman Catholic Church as an analogy for the Hizmet movement because both of them are faith groups and statistically their adherents comprise approximately 8 percent of the populations of the UK and Turkey, respectively.

*Sadık Çınar is the director of the Birmingham branch of the Dialogue Society in the UK.

Published on Today's Zaman, 18 March 2014, Tuesday