Why are you avoiding the Gladio prosecutor?

Let me summarize: Two of the world’s leading legal scholars, upon invitation by the Justice Academy and the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), came to Turkey. One is Eloy Velasco, the judge in the trial of the ETA separatist terrorist organization in Spain; and the other is prosecutor Felice Casson, who dealt with the deep state structure in Italy. The real audience of the symposium is the specially authorized judges and prosecutors in Turkey. In other words, it is part of the professional training process, but the event is also open to the media. The doors are wide open, but no one is setting foot in the room. How can that be?

Those who make frequent remarks and arguments on the specially authorized courts, those who argue that the judges and prosecutors handling the Ergenekon investigation have crossed the line, those who criticize the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) investigation, underlying that it has led to the contamination of power in order to put pressure on the courts, ignored this panel, the participants in the panel and the discussions that happened there.

The Gladio prosecutor is there, the ETA judge is there, but not one news report was published on the front page of any newspaper. However, the participants, who arrived in Turkey in a very timely manner, considering that their presence is strongly relevant to the ongoing discussions, will enable us to look at the problem from the perspective of universal law. The symposium was covered by the Zaman and Taraf dailies alone. The rest remained indifferent.

Let us see what the guests said. The ETA judge said, “In Spain, we have broader authorities.” Consider this interesting experience with separatist terrorism. The Spanish judge continued: “Immunity is only applicable to the king. But we also jailed the king’s son-in-law over corruption charges.” There you have a limit and line of immunity from prosecution.

What did the famous Gladio prosecutor say? “The Ergenekon terrorist organization and Gladio display similarities in terms of their illegal activities and the support they received from the military components of the state,” he said. What would those who have been trying to dilute the Ergenekon investigations say in response to these remarks by the legendary prosecutor?

Casson was asked: “What sorts of barriers did you encounter during the Gladio investigation?” In response, he said: “President [Francesco] Cossiga was at the top of the organization of the judges and prosecutors at the same time; and he was against the prosecution; but the other members of the board convened and they adopted a common stance against him.” You are surprised to see the dark propaganda, right?

In response to another question, prosecutor Casson notes that there are attempts to revive dark plots; he further adds: “These people have developed some sort of habit of carrying out illegal deeds. After we effectively removed Gladio, attempts to recreate it continued, but we did not let this happen. We did not let them resurrect it.”

The Gladio prosecutor also said he received threats and that negative statements were published in the media against him. He was not alone as the police officers who worked with him were also threatened. Casson said he was worried about these police officers the most.

I saw a TV program on which the Italian prosecutor was asked whether they had specially authorized courts. He said, “No.” That response was kept there in the form of a subtitle for several minutes. However, if you listen to the statement more carefully, you will see that he was saying there was no such status in Italy but that the prosecutors were given authorities and power that were much broader and more extensive than Turkish prosecutors. Well, who cares? The young correspondent of the freshly launched news channel was so overjoyed by the response he got that he made a move by asking the most critical (!) question: “In Turkey, National Intelligence Organization [MİT] officials, journalists and generals were summoned.” But the prosecutor gave this response as a slap in the face: After noting that all were equal before the law, he said they issued an arrest warrant for the chief of the secret service and the head of the gendarmerie in Italy. And of course the program was interrupted at this point.

There is no need to be indirect on that matter; some of the analysts and journalists are avoiding what the ETA judge and Gladio prosecutor have said. An outdated group of people who have failed to declare that staging a coup is a crime against humanity and failed to believe that the coup investigations are good opportunities for the consolidation of democracy do not want to hear how Gladio was eliminated through the judiciary. But how long did it take? How long will the efforts to use Nedim Şener, Ahmet Şık and Soner Yalçın as shields to prevent further questions work to protect the culprits from being tried? The actual goal of the attempts to undermine the legal and security process by reliance on planned paranoia referring to a religious community is the fear of some groups of legal accountability and nothing else. The dark and anti-democratic relations that they once established would be revealed, and so they are trying to undermine this process by focusing on the security and justice mechanism. And some naive people fall into the trap of this paranoia. I wish they could take a look at the issue from the perspective of international law and the experience of the coup tradition in Turkey.

Perpetrators of 1997 coup cannot be brought to trial if this situation persists

Some concrete developments have taken place with respect to the Feb. 28 postmodern coup. Criminal complaints were filed. To be honest, this was a promising development for democracy; but there appears to be no sign of hope when it comes to believing that such investigations would be properly carried out. If the members of the judiciary are harmed extensively and the security forces are criticized mercilessly, why would the figures responsible for carrying out the investigation do their best to carry out an effective investigation?

It must have been forgotten in this country that no extrajudicial killing has taken place for the past 10 years. However, for many years, politics was designed through political assassinations and acts that stirred hatred and anger among the public. It was the police and the judiciary that ended it. Even the most influential gangs felt the breath of the security forces and the judicial mechanism. Now these two major institutions are being lynched. Some, in an attempt to present themselves as attractive to the ancient media, speak without considering the repercussions of their actions; by so doing, they actually make themselves questionable.

Now, if the judiciary or the police say they would not effectively investigate considering that they would be criticized anyway, would they be wrong? The figures trying to undermine the process are actually trying to do just that. They think that they will put pressure upon the judiciary and the security forces to cover up their actions. You must be naive or submissive to anti-democratic illusions to not see this fact.