View from the Sabah daily and ATV headquarters in İstanbul. (Photo: Sabah)
5 February 2014 /TODAY’S ZAMAN, ANKARA
The details of a summary of judicial investigation proceedings into the Turkuaz Media Group, which pro-government businesspeople allegedly helped buy by contributing to a pool of millions of dollars and hiring armored vehicles to transport the money, were shared via Twitter by user Haramzadeler100 (sons of thieves).
The owner of the Twitter account has maintained that the voice recordings in the summary of proceedings were obtained through legal technical surveillance of phones conducted by financial crimes and anti-organized crime units of the police department.
The Twitter user claims that Çalık Group, the owner of Turkuaz Media Group, wishes to get out of the media business and provided certain businesspeople with armored vehicles for the transportation of the money pool — which the government allegedly collected from businesspeople after pressuring them and promising shares in big government tenders. Some mainstream media outlets, including the Sabah daily and the ATV television station, are part of Turkuaz Media Group.
Technical police surveillance determined that Mehmet Cengiz, the owner of Cengiz Holding, asked Ahmet Çalık, then-owner of the media group, and Serhat Albayrak, CEO of the media group and a relative of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for a vehicle to carry a large portion of the money Cengiz planned to withdraw from his account at Ziraat Bankası (Ziraat Bank) so that he could transfer it to Aktifbank, a bank owned by Çalık.
According to the voice recordings posted on Haramzadeler100’s Twitter, the money Cengiz delivered to Çalık Group for the sale of the media group was sent by an armored Mercedes Vito with the license number 34 FAH 52 and a Renault Fluence with the license plate number 34 VU 8861, owned by Çalık Holding.
In a wiretapped phone conversation from Oct. 7, 2013, a voice, allegedly Cengiz, can be heard asking Çalık: “Ahmet Abi [older brother], can you send me that thing?” In response, Çalık asked “Pardon?” obviously having failed to understand what Cengiz meant. “The vehicle, the vehicle,” Cengiz repeated, after which Çalık allegedly responded, “Okay, brother.”
According to the tweeted voice recordings, former Transportation, Maritime Affairs and Communications Minister Binali Yıldırım dismantled the mobile phones of those businesspeople who contributed to the pool of money to prevent wiretapping.
Businesspeople involved in the scheme to buy Turkuaz Media Group were allegedly pressured by Ömer Sertbaş, advisor to then minister Yıldırım, to provide the money within two months.
Mehmet Cengiz, Celal Koloğlu, Nihat Özdemir, İbrahim Çeçen and an unknown businessperson allegedly contributed a total of $100 million each to the pool to buy the media group. Other businesspeople contributed smaller amounts, including Adnan Çebi ($30 million) and Hayrettin Özaltın ($20 million). Çeçen is reportedly willing to give an additional $50 million if he is allowed a share in the third Bosporus bridge tender. According to the voice recordings, it is unknown if Muzaffer Nasıroğlu and Abdullah Tivnikli made any contributions to the pool.
In earlier tweets by Haramzadeler100, it was said Çalık decided to sell his media company as he was growing more and more frustrated with Erdoğan’s intervention into its editorial decisions. He claimed that Erdoğan was meddling with the paper and the TV station through his relative, Albayrak, who was the group’s general manager.
Upon rumors that Rupert Murdoch was interested in purchasing Çalık’s share to enter the media business in Turkey, Erdoğan assigned Yıldırım to organize several businesspeople to collect enough funds to acquire the media group, Haramzadeler claimed.
Erdoğan was also allegedly directly involved in the process of meeting with businessmen Cemal Kalyoncu and Ömer Faruk Kalyoncu on July 21, 2013 at the prime minister’s home in İstanbul’s Kısıklı neighborhood. The meeting was also attended by Berat Albayrak, the CEO of Çalık Holding and Erdoğan’s son-in-law.