All conspiracies will collapse

CANAN COŞKUN
 
A ruling has been reached in the Oda TV trial, which was launched following searches made at Oda TV under the Ergenekon investigation. Istanbul Serious Crime Court No 18 decided to acquit the thirteen defendants, including our paper’s reporter Ahmet Şık and journalists Nedim Şener, Soner Yalçın, Barış Pehlivan, Barış Terkoğlu and Prof. Dr. Yalçın Küçük. Şık, asked for his final comments at the hearing, said, ‘This court complex has come to symbolise the graveyard of justice.’ Attending the hearing held yesterday at Istanbul Serious Crime Court No 18 were our paper’s reporter Ahmet Şık, who has been on pre-trial detention in Silivri Prison for 104 days, and journalists Nedim Şener, Soner Yalçın, Barış Pehlivan, Barış Terkoğlu, Hanefi Avcı, Muhammet Sait Çakır, Yalçın Küçük and Coşkun Musluk. CHP members of parliament Barış Yarkadaş and Sezgin Tanrıkulu, Turkish representative of the Reporters Without Borders organisation, Erol Önderoğlu, and a large number of Şık’s journalist colleagues also monitored the hearing.
Ahmet Şık, asked for his final comments at the hearing, indicated that there was a great deal to say and commented, ‘If I say what’s on my mind, fresh charges will be brought over this. I’m referring to the judicial staff who are drafting the new indictment into us and are acting as the ruling party’s henchmen. This court complex has come to symbolise the graveyard of justice. The task of digging the grave for justice is being carried out by these very prosecutors and judges. There are two statues of Themis at the entrance to this judicial complex and they hold scales. Those scales are supposed to symbolise the delivering of justice, but, it is a fact that those scales weigh out no justice to those on trial in this graveyard. It performs its weighing function for judges and prosecutors; there is honour and dignity in one scale and dishonour and indignity in the other. This badness always weighs heavier for these judges and prosecutors.’ Nedim Şener, saying, ‘My final comment is for Hrant and for justice. I became implicated in this trial due to having exposed those responsible for the Hrant Dink murder,’ continued, ‘Had the things written by those who stand accused in this trial been read, Turkey would not be experiencing these days. Akın Atalay was acting as counsel in this trial and Kadri Gürsel was defending us. Now they have thrown these people inside. I want the defendants in this trial to be provided with their rights. I say this for Hrant and for justice.’ Soner Yalçın said, ‘I wish to be acquitted. I make a complaint about the Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organisation.’ Barış Pehlivan said, ‘I want all the functionaries who set up this conspiracy to sit in this dock.’ Barış Terkoğlu, for his part, said, ‘I prefer to be a defendant in this trial rather than a judge or prosecutor. We ourselves wrote our fate. Judges write their fate with their decisions.’ Hanefi Avcı said, ‘I wish of your court for all the defendants to be acquitted and for a crime report to be made into those who set up the conspiracy.’ Prof. Dr. Yalçın Küçük, on the other hand, said, ‘I stand in this courtroom accused of being number one. They detained me in Ergenekon and acquitted me in this trial. They accused me of directing the PKK, Ergenekon and Oda TV. If I am acquitted here, I will be acquitted in two trials. One of them being Oda TV and the other Ergenekon. The law is absent from both the detaining and releasing of me and my colleagues.’
Crime report into the conspirators
The bench that ruled on the file ruled unanimously that the thirteen accused be acquitted of the charges brought against them. The bench also reminded those who had been remanded in custody at the investigation stage that they could sue for compensation. The bench also decided to file a crime report with Istanbul Republic Chief Prosecution about the persons who sent data to the Oda TV computers that constituted digital evidence supporting the charges and the public servants who acted in consensus and concert at the file’s investigation and prosecution stage.
The AKP will go, too
After the ruling had been announced, Şık said the following to those in the courtroom: ‘Let this ruling be a lesson to the prosecutors drafting the Cumhuriyet indictment and the judges who will hold the trial. Six years later everything has come out into the open. Let nobody have any doubt. We will make possible a life in which we will make our children’s laughter come true. This mafia rule, this state of organised evil, will meet the end it deserves. The inevitable will happen. Whichever rubbish heap the Gülenists are on in political terms, the AKP rulers will go there, too.’
We were not deceived and did not deceive
Ahmet Şık’s journalist colleagues congregated with the CHP MPs Barış Yarkadaş and Sezgin Tanrıkulu in front of the judicial complex before the Oda TV trial started. Ertuğrul Mavioğlu read a statement from the ‘Journalists Outside’ on behalf of the group. Mavioğlu said, ‘A legal oddity, a conspiracy and an ambush are ending today. With the releasing of Yalçın Küçük and Hanefi Avcı on 12 December, there remained no detained defendants in the trial, which had its actual outset with the arresting of Barış Pehlivan, Barış Terkoğlu and Soner Yalçın on 14 February 2011. In the meantime, Kaşif Kozinoğlu has died in prison without being able to seek his rights. The investigating prosecutors Zekeriya Öz and Cihan Kansız have fled abroad. One of the presiding judges of specially-authorised Istanbul Serious Crime Court No 16, Resul Çakır, is on the run, while Mehmet Ekinci has been detained. A section of the judges who passed telephone interception orders in the investigation and the remand orders along with the hearing prosecutors are also either in detention or on the run. The stage reached by the trial today shows that we were not deceived and did not deceive.’ Mavioğlu, pointing out that Ahmet Şık has been detained in the Cumhuriyet trial, said, ‘With yesterday’s prosecutors trying to establish links with Ergenekon at Oda TV, today’s prosecutors are looking for organisational links between journalists and FETO, the PKK and DHKP-C. Today as yesterday, we wish for justice, liberty for the freedom of publication and expression and for journalists to be released.’