New documents from the CHP: Money transferred to a FETOist company

New documents from the CHP: Money transferred to a FETOist company
The CHP’s US Representative Yurter Özcan, who is closely following the Hakan Atilla trial, has disclosed documents that will provoke debate over the AKP-Gulenist relationship. Özcan says money was transferred by the Turkish government between 2010 and 2014 to DLA Piper, partner of the FETOist YKK law office.
 
Aykut Küçükkaya
 
With the judgment stage of the trial in which Reza Zarrab is a witness and Hakan Atilla the sole defendant approaching, the CHP’s US Representative Yurter Özcan, who is closely following the trial, has disclosed documents that will provoke debate over the AKP-Gulenist relationship. Özcan asks, “The AKP and pro-regime media are saying that the FETOist YKK law office hosted the judge in the Atilla trial in Istanbul. DLA Piper, the recipient of millions of dollars in expenditure by the Turkish Embassy in Washington, was the owner of YKK in 2010-2014 and then its partner. Why did the AKP give so much money to this FETO partner?”
 
The key points summarised from comments Özcan made to Cumhuriyet are as follows:
 
“There is one point the AKP forgets to mention.”
 
“The reason the AKP government accuses judge Richard Berman on the Atilla trial (formerly named the Zarrab trial) venued in New York of FETO ties is that the YKK Law Office was one of the sponsors of the symposium to which judge Berman was invited under the auspices of the United Nations on 8-9 April... However, there is one point that the AKP forgets to mention: The YKK Law Office, which stands accused of FETOism, was established and grew extremely rapidly at the time of the AKP government. YKK is a company that acted as legal adviser in such large commercial transactions as the public offering of Türk Telekom (one billion dollars), Lukoil’s purchase of Akpet for 500 million dollars and Turkuaz Group’s purchase of ATVSabah group for 1.1 billion dollars.
 
Strategic partner is no stranger
 
The owner of YKK law office from 2010 until November 2014, and its strategic partner thereafter, was DLA Piper, one of America’s largest law firms... DLA Piper also undertook lobbying activities for both the Republic of Turkey Foreign Ministry and the Turkish embassy in Washington. This was not all, and it even provided legal advisory services for the Health Ministry’s 250-million-euro hospital project in Kayseri. The AKP and FETO, who were bedfellows until a few years ago, have trouble disguising their old ties. However, has nobody reminded the AKP government that US federal judges are assigned to cases not by appointment but at random?”
 
The pertinent article in 2016
 
Journalist Tolga Tanış addressed this matter in his Hürriyet column at the time on 14 May 2016: “Initially, I could make no sense of it, because judge Richard Berman felt the need to make a lengthy initial comment at the 27 April hearing at which Reza Zarrab was brought before a court in New York... And he mentioned that he had been in Istanbul once. But things became clear once the hearing record had been published by the court. Yet another Fethullah Gülen story emerged from the affair. How? The reason for judge Berman’s Istanbul journey was a symposium entitled “Justice and the Rule of Law” held on 8-9 May 2014. Berman was the moderator of a panel devoted to “An Independent and Effective Judiciary”. Looking at the programme and participants, this was a top-ranking meeting which saw the attendance of important jurists from both the USA and Europe and was staged at the Four Seasons Bosphorus. You are familiar with the view disseminated by circles close to the government that the Zarrab trial in the USA is the Gülen Brotherhood’s game. The 27 April hearing has ended. A full six days later, a report entitled “Here is the Parallel Structure’s cosmic law office” appeared in a government-affiliated newspaper. So, who does the office in the report, penned without mentioning the Zarrab trial, turn out to be? You guessed right. The Yüksel Karkın Küçük (YKK) Law Office. I will not dwell on the contents of the report. It is an unsigned story in which numerous names are mentioned and based on various theories. However, what is interesting about the affair is that reliable people in legal world in Istanbul with whom I have spoken having read the hearing record tell me that YKK is close to the Gülen Brotherhood. On top of this, their telling me that this office got mixed up in dubious business in the years when the brotherhood and government were arm in arm, and in quite a few of the events over which allegations are raised in the report.”