Ercan Gün is a journalist. Following the arrest of Hrant Dink’s murderer Ogün Samast in Samsun, police and gendarmerie officers had a sincere conversation with the suspect, which was recorded on video. A 44-second long part of these recordings was broadcast on Fox TV in the evening prime time news broadcast on 1 February 2007. The news director Ercan Gün was the broadcaster.
After the 15 July coup attempt, the Court gathered all those whose names were mentioned in the murder of Hrant Dink and who were also believed to be related to the Gülen community in an indictment and wrote a story from the collected information. The most ridiculous part of the verdict in which the Court tells a story is the part where it justifies the sentence it gave to Ercan Gün.
According to the Court, the footage was given to Ercan Gün by police officers who were members of the Gülen community. The purpose was to create the image that the gendarmerie had committed the murder and to create a negative public opinion about the Turkish military. In this way, the organisation was to take over the higher posts in the state.
Who handed over the footage to Ercan Gün?
First of all, it is not acceptable in terms of freedom of the press to oblige journalists to disclose the source of their news.
Secondly, Ercan Gün stated that he received the video footage by an anonymous courier. However, the Court claims that Ali Fuat Yılmazer forwarded the footage to the Gülen Community and from there to Ercan Gün. What is the court’s evidence for this allegation? The court does not provide any concrete evidence for this allegation, but makes an interpretation.
Here is the irrational reasoning of the court:
1. Ercan Gün worked for 10 years at Zaman daily, a Gülenist Community affiliated newspaper, and left 12 days before the murder to become a news director at Fox TV, which is not affiliated with the Community.
2. If he worked there for 10 years, it means that his commitment to the organisation is very high.
3. It was found out that he went to his former workplace two days before the broadcast and made phone calls to his former colleagues two hours before the broadcast of the footage. This means that he carried out activities within organisational coordination.
4. Before publishing the footage, he travelled to Samsun province where the footage was taken and talked to gendarmerie officials and took pictures from there. This means that he intended to create the impression that he received the footage from the gendarmerie.
5. While there are thousands of journalists and media outlets in Turkey, why did Ercan Gün receive the footage by an anonymous courier? This cannot be a coincidence, we understand that the Community wants to publish the footage, and it did so with the help of Ercan Gün, who has a high level of commitment to the group.
Does the Court have any evidence to support this fiction? NO !
As can be easily understood, there is no concrete evidence, no witness testimony, no documentary evidence that Gün received the footage from the community. It is just a wilful misinterpretation.
- First of all, it is quite understandable that a person who has worked in a place for 10 years has a phone call with his former colleagues and goes to his former workplace within 10 days after his departure. These meetings cannot be considered as a proof that he took the video footage from there.
- The people in the video footage, which he did not know who sent it to him, were wearing gendarmerie uniforms. There was no police in the footage. Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind would be that these images were taken by the gendarmerie. It is a typical journalistic practice for a journalist to go to the scene of an incident in order to prepare a news report, to take video recordings and to call and interview those connected with the incident in order to find out the details. However, the Court inferred that this activity was done in order to create a bad impression of the Gendarmerie.
- The Court does not accept Ercan Gün’s defence that the footage was sent to him by an anonymous courier, and attributes a farfetched meaning to the case by saying that there must have been something else going on, otherwise why would it have been sent to you among thousands of journalists?
Well, is there any evidence that Ali Fuat Yılmazer gave the footage to the Gulen Community?
Instead of presenting concrete evidence for this, the court repeats the same fallacy it does throughout the judgement.
1. Ercan Gün worked at Zaman. Ercan Gün is a member of the Community. Ercan Gün published the footage.
2. The court believes that the aim of the organisation was to use the footage to make it look like the murder was carried out by the gendarmerie.
3. The court believes that Ali Fuat Yılmazer is also a member of the Community.
4. The court cannot prove it, but believes that Ali Fuat Yılmazer has somehow delivered the footage to Ercan Gün.
Here are the exact wording of the ridiculous court judgement: “this video recording was first sent to the defendant Ali Fuat upon request from the Samsun Provincial Police, this defendant had the footage sent to the press, this defendant Ercan was the one who published the footage, there was no direct communication between Ercan and the defendant Ali Fuat, However, since Ercan was a member of the organisation’s broadcasting headquarters and had intensive meetings at this headquarters before the broadcast, and since the defendant Ercan could not explain where he got the recordings from, it is understood from the scope of the file that these recordings were first sent by the defendant Ali Fuat to this broadcasting headquarters of the organisation and then transmitted to the defendant Ercan.“
Presenting the murder as if the gendarmerie had committed it (!)
According to the court, the purpose of broadcasting the footage is to make it look like the gendarmerie committed the murder and to damage the image of the Turkish Army. There is no statement, document or any other evidence that such a purpose exists. The Court does not even make an interpretation here, but directly sets forth a new arbitrary allegation.
On the one hand, the court states that the murder was organised by Ramazan Akyürek and Ali Fuat Yılmazer, whom it considers to be police officers of the Gülen Community; on the other hand, 12 of the 25 defendants sentenced are gendarmerie officers. Of the 12 gendarmerie officers, only 3 of them were found to be members of the organisation. The gendarmerie officers are the ones who received the intelligence about the murder in Trabzon, who took part in the images with flags in Samsun and who, according to the court, tracked Ogün Samast in Istanbul.
When there are so many gendarmerie officers involved in the events before and after the murder, it is a very reasonable journalistic activity to report on this and to publish the video recording sent to him.
Despite all these facts, the court sentenced journalist Ercan Gün on the basis of allegations without evidence in order not to spoil the fiction of its story.