Secret expert?

The FETO-suspect prosecutor Murat İnam, who is conducting the investigation surrounding the Cumhuriyet file that runs to thousands of pages including the indictment and ‘indictment annexes’, has appointed an ‘expert’ whose name, background and identity are undisclosed to examine the Financial Crimes Investigation Board report. There are illegible initials at the foot of each page of the 28-page report, which starts, ‘I have been appointed as expert by the Istanbul Republic Chief Prosecution Press Crimes Office’ and is entitled, ‘Preliminary Expert’s Report’. At the end, nothing but ‘EXPERT’ is written and beneath this there is a signature that is also illegible. Cumhuriyet Newspaper Executive Board Chair Akın Atalay has inspected the report by the ‘secret expert’ in Silivri Prison where he is being held in detention and described it as ‘a document the like of which has not been seen.’ The full text of Akın Atalay’s letter is as follows:

Unseen in legal history!

I speak assertively: The like of the investigation targeting Cumhuriyet newspaper has not been seen in Turkey’s legal history, including the Ottoman period. Whatever you touch, you come across a disaster inflicted on the law and justice. Take that Republic (!) Prosecutor who is conducting our investigation and whose trial for FETO affiliation is continuing at the Court of Cassation. He has put in some astute, all but incredible work. One example: Following the category of ‘secret witness’ that entered our law along with the Ergenekon investigation, he has invented the status of ‘secret expert’ in our investigation. It as yet lacks legal foundation and basis. But it will not be long before a statutory regulation covering experts unknown to us a physical person with a name and capacity comes along, perhaps a decree with the force of law. Yes, our prosecutor has given the detailed report he obtained from the Financial Crimes Investigation Board to this unknown expert and said, ‘Analyse it and draft a report.’ And our unknown expert presented a report in humble anonymity on 20 December 2016, simply appending ‘Expert’ and signing.  A report and a half, no less. By way of example: the identity of the partners of the Popular Players Theatre one of whose founders in the 1960’s was Aydın Engin and also of a construction materials company and a pharmaceutical plant at which he has never worked and with which he has had absolutely no connection need to be investigated in the context of FETO/PDY; or the identification of the partners of Cumhuriyet Newspaper Joint-Stock Company at which Hikmet Çetinkaya worked between the years of 1967-1991 and an investigation into their mutual connections with or adjunction to terrorist organisations was requested. Let us tell him: These people are Nadir Nadi, Doğan Nadi and their sisters and mother! By way of example: it is stated that, in view of the payment of 300 lira that I made in May 2007 to clear my daughter’s credit card debt, the monetary relations between me and my daughter and the reasons for them must be established. This is not a joke but is real! Wait, this is just the beginning! The unknown expert is just getting into his stride and has called for an examination right down to the names of endorsers of the account statements from the oldest until now of all credit cards used by Cumhuriyet newspaper’s managers and columnists, their mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, children and grandchildren, their bank account movements and a list of all cheques and promissory notes that they have issued or endorsed until now, and all business and transactions that have arisen at the Post, Telegraph and Telephone Administration, Settlement Bank, Stockbrokers Association of Turkey, Insurance Association of Turkey and the General Directorate of Land Registry by virtue of the same transactions.

 Prosecutor İnam’s contributions

Well, what has the prosecutor done with this irrational report? He has okayed the lot and has drafted instructions for these examinations to every place and every entity, however irrelevant. But, he has not sufficed with this, and has added former spouses to the list of people to be investigated.  One example will do and I will not give the others by way of example: he has placed among the people to be investigated the wife that one of our number divorced 44 years ago (you did not misread: forty-four years in words) and his second wife that he divorced 26 years ago. Do not say that words fail you - there is plenty more. But, let these things wait until the hearing. I do not know if the judges of Penal Chamber Number 16 of the Court of Cassation will read this article. But, if they do not fall hostage to the climate of fear and read it, I have something to say: they may find very rich and useful material in our investigation file relating to the count of FETO membership against the suspect they are trying, Republic Prosecutor Murat İnam. It will suffice if they merely ask, ‘How can you conduct an investigation like this? What is your purpose? Do you want to denigrate and discredit the FETO/PDY investigations and prosecutions?’ Oh, by the way, at the last moment in the indictment they altered the charge raised against us and on which we were detained. However, we remain in detention on the basis of that former ‘charge’.