Hunt for charges against Ahmet Şık

KEMAL GÖKTAŞ
 
Documents have emerged showing that the case against Ahmet Şık, charged with aiding the DHKP-C in the Cumhuriyet indictment, has been turned into a legal ‘jigsaw’. In the indictment, Şık is accused of ‘aiding a terrorist organisation’ for writing a report about a telephone call he made with DHKP-C members who were holding prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz hostage at Çağlayan Judicial Complex while the act of hostage taking was in progress. However, a decision was taken to drop the charges in an investigation launched against Şık over this interview two years ago.
He concluded that there was no crime
In the investigation, launched in response to a tip-off by somebody named Umut Akça, Şık’s statement was taken by prosecutor Umut Tepe and he said that, on learning that the militants who had taken prosecutor Kiraz hostage had contacted certain press organs by telephone and given information, he himself spoke to militants whose mobile phone numbers he had tracked down and published the discussions they had had in question-answer form in the newspaper. Şık, recounting that he had also asked to speak to prosecutor Kiraz but the hostage takers did not concede to this request, stated that this was journalistic activity and said, ‘Journalists everywhere in the world act as I did. Given the opportunity to contact people who have taken a hostage, the failure to do so would constitute an incorrect move in journalistic terms. If the interview is assessed as a whole, it will be seen that I criticised the action that was staged. In fact, in one of the questions I said that they were making Berkin Elvan into a terrorist through this action. I am always opposed to violence, regardless of who it comes from.’ Prosecutor Umut Tepe then passed a decision on 24 July 2015 to discontinue the investigation on the charge of ‘praising crime and criminals.’ Tepe pointed out in his decision that, in order for this crime to be constituted, a clear and proximate threat to public order must have come into being. Tepe also noted that there was no design or intent to praise crime in the contents of the report, either.
Objection to his own decision
This interview, in which the prosecutor detected no crime, has been resurrected following the passing of arrest and detention orders against Ahmet Şık as part of the Cumhuriyet investigation. Prosecutor Fahrettin Kemal Yerli, who interrogated Şık in the Cumhuriyet investigation, posed questions about this interview that was used above all by troll accounts to target Şık. Şık and his lawyers, for their part, recalled that a decision to discontinue the investigation had been taken over this interview and stated that fresh charges could not be brought over the matter. Following this, prosecutor Tepe, who had ruled to discontinue the investigation two years ago, applied to the Penal Judgeship of the Peace for the setting aside of the decision to discontinue the investigation.
HTS records as grounds
Tepe has based this application on Article 172/2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The said article contains the provision, ‘After a decision has been taken that there are no grounds for prosecution (discontinuing the investigation), unless fresh evidence emerges, proceedings may not be brought on behalf of the public for the same act.’ As to the fresh evidence on which prosecutor Tepe is relying to surmount the statutory regulation, this is Şık’s HTS records. No indication is given in the prosecutor’s application as to what he means by HTS records, but it would appear that he cited as evidence Şık’s phone call with the DHKP-C members who had taken Kiraz hostage from the investigation file. However, Şık in any case stated in his report and also said in his statement that he had spoken to the militants on the phone. Istanbul Penal Judgeship of the Peace No 12 has granted this application by prosecutor Tepe and reopened the investigation, as if Şık had not stated in the text of the report that he had spoken on the phone to the militants while working on the report. On the day on which the Judgeship issued this ruling, prosecutor Yerli then joined this case with the Cumhuriyet case. Consequently, a news report in which the prosecution had detected no elements of crime two years ago has been included in the indictment against Şık in support of the count of aiding the DHKP-C.