EMRE USLU
e.uslu@todayszaman.comEMRE USLU
Sümeyye assassination lie: Why I am a target; what was the goal say USLU.
The news about an assassination plot to kill President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s daughter Sümeyye turned out to have no substance. It was very obvious from the very beginning that the news was simply a fabrication. A legal investigation is still under way regarding the issue. All the other allegations printed by the pool media — a term referring to the pro-government media — and all the investigations launched by project judges and prosecutors appointed by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) are likewise just fabrications.
The real motivation behind the cases launched against me and slander suggesting my involvement in an alleged assassination plot against Sümeyye Erdoğan is because I exposed some operations by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), some of which could be considered illegal. I, the Taraf newspaper and journalist Mehmet Baransu, who have dared to write about these issues since 2012, were already a target. Now, Baransu is in jail, I am in exile and Taraf is under intense pressure. I think we have been targeted because we wrote about the following issues in which we think MİT is involved and are for the benefits of the AKP rather than the interests of the country.
1) The information that the intelligence that led to the killing of 34 civilians near Uludere by Turkish warplanes came from MİT. 2) The fact that Turkey will turn into an intelligence state. 3) The fact that the settlement process launched with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to resolve the Kurdish issue was a deception aimed at keeping Kurds busy until the general election. 4) The fact that an alleged assassination plot to kill Sümeyye Erdoğan — that was allegedly cancelled when it was exposed — was actually fake. 5) The trucks that were sent to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Qaeda. 6) The weird relationship established with Iran, some elements of which were exposed in the Dec. 17 and 25 corruption dossier in 2013.
The government put pressure on Taraf, jailed Baransu by finding other excuses for his imprisonment and launched slanderous accusations and conspired against me for writing about these issues, which everyone is talking about to some extent today because we brought them to the nation’s agenda.
One of the conspiracies leveled against me was a claim of my involvement in an assassination plot to kill Sümeyye Erdoğan. The reason why this claim was brought forward was this: At that time, the government was trying to obtain a Red Notice about me, which would enable to it request my extradition from the United States because all the other allegations against me were full of nonsense and politically motivated, so it was impossible for them to ask for my extradition from the United States according to the laws of this country. In order to ask my extradition from the United States, the launch of a case against me because I had expressed my political views was not sufficient. For such a move, the only thing needed was my involvement in a criminal activity like an assassination plot against someone.
That’s why they made up the claim about my involvement in an assassination plot against Erdoğan’s daughter. If those who were involved in forging documents to prove their claims had done their jobs better, the government would have asked my extradition after issuing a Red Notice based on those news reports.
As a matter of fact, as if he had no other work to do, the Turkish ambassador to Washington once told US officials — based on news reports in the pro-government Turkish media — that “Emre Uslu and members of the Gülen movement [a faith-based movement inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen] even get involved in assassination plots against Erdoğan’s children. Don’t give any support to them.” This may seem unbelievable to you, but I have confirmation of the accuracy of these statements from many US senators, members of congress and State Department officials. Other journalists have also written about it. That conspiracy was published in the pro-government media to provide grounds for the lies to be told by Turkish embassy officials in the US and other Western countries.
Why Umut Oran and me?
The reason is the famous phone conversation between Erdoğan and his son Bilal in which Erdoğan asks Bilal to “zero” the money in his house, following the public revelations of a corruption scandal on Dec. 17, 2013. When those recordings were revealed, Erdoğan said they were fabricated and a montage. I, on the other hand, argued that it was pretty easy to prove if the tapes were fake or otherwise without requiring reports or voice analysis. I simply said: “In those records, Erdoğan told Bilal that he sent Sümeyye to İstanbul. If this tape is fake, then publish the records to see if Sümeyye traveled from Ankara to İstanbul. If she traveled at the time mentioned in the tape, then the records are authentic. If not, then the tape is fake.” I wrote columns and made comments where I raised this argument to put an end to the debate.
That is the reason why they invented a plot involving me and Oran. If the documents they manufactured had not turned out to be fake, they would have said: “Emre Uslu already called for the publication of Sümeyye Erdoğan’s travel records and Oran released them. They were following Sümeyye as part of their assassination plot.”
They resorted to such a conspiracy in order to cover up the US dollars they shamelessly zeroed. However, facts have a habit of coming to light sooner or later. Today is such a time.
Source: ZAMAN