Fake court orders, 'non-existent' criminal evidence, a million 'terror' suspects

A courtroom sketch of the ÇHD case from March 2019. (Drawing: Murat Başol)

Here is bianet's weekly summary of important events in Turkey:

Trial of ÇHD lawyers

"They are talking about digital materials as evidence against me. And I say that this evidence does not exist. They are not physically there. We say, 'Bring them, then.' But they have been unable to do so for years, because there is no such evidence."

This is what lawyer Selçuk Kozağaçlı said at the hearing of the Progressive Lawyers Association case on September 15.

Eighteen ÇHD lawyers were sentenced to a total of 159 years in prison in March 2019 for "being a member of a terrorist organization." The ruling was mostly based on statements by anonymous witnesses.

In September 2020, the Court of Cassation ruled for the retrial of Kozağaçlı and two other lawyers while it upheld the sentences of others.

At Wednesday's hearing, Kozağaçlı pointed out that an anonymous witness had been proven to be mentally unstable and the supposed "digital evidence" against the lawyers had not been brought up for years.

The court ruled for the continuation of the lawyers' arrest.

The witness in question, who is known as "the permanent witness," had testified in more than 100 political trials. In the last year, he sent a petition to the Court of Cassation, saying that testimony should not be taken into account due to "psychological reasons."

An expert examination of the case file says that the case file does not include the original digital evidence and but its copies, which might have been altered or manipulated.

As long as the HASH values and metadata of the evidence, which can confirm the authenticity of the evidence, is not made available to the defending party, the materials cannot be legally considered as evidence, according to the expert report.

"As long as it is not delivered to the suspects of their attorneys, it cannot be clearly stated whether the evidence was altered and whether the evidence was manipulated; according to relevant laws, regulations and and standards, the image copies of the evidence in the case file cannot be considered as legal evidence unless they are not handed to the defending party..."

"The digital examination report prepared by the General Directorate of Security did not include the HASH values and metadata, which included the dates of the creation, changes and the last change of the files and which computers and users processed the files, according to the report."

Read more on the ÇHD case:

Lawyer Kozağaçlı: Justice is a matter of personality for all of us

Court of Cassation upholds prison sentences of lawyers 'with its conscience'

Lawyer Ebru Timtik dies on 238th day of death fast

Jailed lawyer Çiçek: I said, 'Give me at least some water', they didn't

International law organizations prepare report on trial of Progressive Lawyers Association

Fake court rulings

On September 10, Prof. Yaman Akdeniz from the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD) revealed that two fake court orders had been issued to two news portals.

Both fake rulings appeared to have been sent by the same judgeship and given after complaints by two businesspeople for "violation of personal rights."

The fake ruling issued to Diken news portal concerned a report titled, "Thirty villas of Keskin holding to be sold in forced auction." The article also mentions two other cases against the owner of the holding, Recep Ercan Keskin, for "qualified robbery" and "customs smuggling."

Similarly, the fake court order issued to Gazete Duvar requested the removal of an article that mentioned a lawsuit against businessperson Erdal Can Alkoçlar and his parents for fraud. The plaintiffs claimed that the Alkoçlar family had convinced them to invest in unapproved medical drug patents, according to the report.

Banning articles that merely report an event is not an uncommon practice as "violation of personal rights" has become the legal pretext of censoring news about alleged or proven wrongdoing in the past few years.

An opposition deputy on September 15 submitted a parliamentary question about the fake court orders, asking the minister of justice whether there were similar incidents in the past and how many news articles had been banned by fake orders. 

Read more on news censorship:

'Fahrenheit 5651': Turkey blocked 467,011 web addresses in 14 years

Access blocked to 141 news articles on bianet

Reports on drug baron with ties to senior AKP deputy censored

Court blocks access to reports about book claiming to reveal corruption in judiciary

Report: Turkey banned 130,000 web addresses in 2019

"Terrorism" investigations

About one and a half million people were investigated for "being a member of an armed terrorist organization" in the five years between 2016 and 2020, according to figures released by the Ministry of Justice on September 17.

In 2020 alone, over 200,000 people were found to be members of an "armed terrorist organization," according to the figures.

While a significant chunk of the investigations were related to the July 2016 coup attempt, these numbers are unacceptable, according to opposition politicians.

Democracy and Progress (DEVA) Party MP Mustafa Yeneroğlu said the reason for the high number of investigations was the jurisprudence of the Court of Cassation that ignores the most basic rules of criminal law because of political pressures.

(VK)