The hearing at a trial on Friday into the planting of a bugging device in current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s prime ministerial office back in 2011 was marred by the judge’s interference into the suspect’s testimony, which hinted that Yasin al-Qadi, a Saudi businessman who was on the UN and US terror lists for financing al-Qaeda, was a special guest of Erdoğan for two months.
The trial of 12 police officers and a former senior member of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) began on Friday at the Ankara 7th High Criminal Court.
Mehmet Sürer, the defense attorney of Serhat Demir, a suspect in the case and a police officer who was assigned to the protective detail of Erdoğan, asked Mehmet Yüksel and Zeki Bulut, former chiefs of the Prime Ministry’s protective services, to disclose the secret assignment given to Demir for two months in İstanbul.
When police chief Yüksel stood up to respond to the question under cross-examination by defense attorney Sürer, the judge, Hüseyin Karamanoğlu, immediately intervened and asked the suspect to not disclose that information, citing state secrecy rules.
In an interview with the liberal Taraf daily a while back, Demir revealed that he had been assigned to protect Qadi for two months. Qadi was barred from entering Turkey at the time by a Cabinet decision pursuant to UN Security Council resolutions. Yet, a corruption investigation into Erdoğan’s son revealed that Qadi entered Turkey illegally under the protection of Erdoğan and met with Erdoğan, National Intelligence Organization (MİT) head Hakan Fidan and others.
In the hearing on Monday, Demir said he was originally assigned to accompany Erdoğan’s special guest in İstanbul for a week but that he had to stay there longer when the guest’s stay was extended by two months. He was prevented from disclosing Qadi’s name in the hearing by the judge.
Emre Uslu, a security analyst, said Demir’s name was added to the government-orchestrated sham trial into the bugging incident because “he is a police officer who, after being asked by Erdoğan, took Yasin al-Qadi from Saudi Arabia to İstanbul, served as his guard during his stay in İstanbul and was aware of his meetings there with a number of authorities, including MİT head Hakan Fidan.”
Police investigators and prosecutors who inquired into the controversial activities of Qadi, who was listed as a financial supporter of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization by the US until very recently, were all reassigned, removed or even fired from their positions.
The botched corruption investigation revealed that Qadi entered Turkey seven times before his name was taken off the US and UN lists of those suspected of supporting terrorist activities. He entered Turkey without any paperwork at various airports, where he arrived on his private jet with the full knowledge and protection of the Prime Ministry. He was also given an official vehicle, a protection officer and a driver by the Prime Ministry, according to a leaked police investigation file. According to the file, Qadi and then-Prime Minister Erdoğan had 12 meetings in Turkey.
Fidan also met with Qadi five times in İstanbul and Ankara during a period when he was not supposed to be allowed into Turkey.
The 13 suspects in the current bugging case face charges of wiretapping Erdoğan for the aim of political espionage, violating the privacy of interpersonal communication and recording interpersonal conversation without permission. In their indictment, the prosecutors seek up to 36 years in prison for the suspects. It states that conversations in the office of President Erdoğan, who was prime minister at the time, were illegally monitored via bugging devices between Nov. 24, 2011 and Dec. 29, 2011.
Prosecutor Durak Çetin submitted the indictment to the court in November 2014, requesting an arrest warrant for 12 police officers who were detained on June 14 and former TÜBİTAK Deputy President Hasan Palaz. Palaz — who was first a witness but is now a suspect in the case — had earlier argued that TÜBİTAK had been pressured to issue a report stating that the bugs had been planted on a specific date.
During their interrogation at the prosecutor’s office, the police officers suspected of installing a bugging device in Erdoğan’s Ankara office denied any link to a device that was found during examinations of the Prime Ministry conducted by MİT three years ago.
The investigation into the spying started two-and-a-half years ago and the prosecutor of the case has been changed three times. No concrete evidence against the suspects has been found. The 72-page indictment in the case is based on newspaper clippings from government dailies, a report by MİT, a report by the Prime Ministry’s Inspection Board and the statements of a secret witness who reportedly works at a company that sells bugging devices.
Apart from the bugging device found in Erdoğan’s office at the Prime Ministry, the former prime minister announced on live TV on Dec. 22, 2012 that bugging devices had also been found in the office at his Ankara home. He did not specify when the devices were found. “Security units [the police] found those devices. They were placed inside the office in my house. Such things have occurred despite all measures having been taken to prevent them,” he said.
Bülent Korucu, a Turkish analyst who is closely following the case, said the indictment is ridden with deficiencies.
He said the prosecutor’s office was first notified of the incident on Feb. 24, 2012. Although the prosecutor’s office requested evidence which could be used for a judicial investigation, the Prime Ministry sent it on Jan. 13, 2014. “The Prime Ministry Monitoring Council [BTK] is said to have conducted the investigation. Yet the case involves a full-fledged judicial crime. It is unlawful to have the BTK conduct a judicial investigation. The BTK is not the authority to conduct an administrative investigation and is not authorized to perform a judicial investigation,” Korucu said.
Korucu also noted that the BTK was ordered to conduct the investigation on Dec. 25, 2012, i.e., exactly one year after the bugs were found on Dec. 24-25, 2011. He also questioned the most serious charge in the indictment, which is espionage for political purposes. “But we cannot find the elements of the offense in the indictment. There are no recordings and there is no information about the country for which this espionage was conducted. The only argument is that there are many foreign missions near the prime minister’s official residence. The suggestion is that these embassies are very close to the residence and can eavesdrop on the prime minister,” Korucu explained.
“The indictment falls short of substantiating the alleged crimes. It cannot establish a link between the evidence and the suspects. There are no fingerprints, no witnesses, no video recording or sound files which are said to have been recorded. It is not known who bought the devices and from where. It must have been a real challenge for the prosecutor to make up a crime and a criminal organization out of so many missing items,” he said.
During the hearing, the police officers suspected of installing a bugging device in Erdoğan’s Ankara office denied any link with a device that was found during examinations of the Prime Ministry conducted by MİT. The hearing also witnessed a procedural violation in which the judge did not order that the indictment be read out aloud in the courtroom. The judge also barred entry into the courtroom after the resumption of the hearing, which is only possible if a judge’s decision is present indicating it is a secret hearing; this, however, was not the case.