Akman must step down

For a long time, as if newspaper columns can serve in the place of courtrooms or journalists and columnists can replace the judges, prosecutors and defense advocates, the "Ergenekon case" (referring to the alleged Ergenekon organization as a terrorist gang was prohibited by court decision) has continued in the media. While some of the several hundred people implicated in the alleged "plot to destabilize the country and trigger a military takeover" crime were officially charged, thousands of pages long indictments brought against them and they were brought in front of a court. Many people are still behind bars without an official charge against them and God knows when the prosecutors will complete writing an indictment against them. Several of the people implicated or officially charged in the case have lost their health, not necessarily because of bad prison conditions but most probably because of depression and complications related to their old age. One person died of cancer and still we have no idea when there will be an end to all this practice of gross violation of almost all norms of justice.

For many people, the Ergenekon case was indeed a revanchist campaign to take revenge for the February 28, 1997 process (in which the first-ever Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan was forced to step down), or to avenge the closure case brought against the AKP (a process from which the AKP narrowly escaped closure but was condemned by the High Court with a 10-1 decision as focus of anti-secular activities) or to reciprocate the Lighthouse e.V. Islamist charity fund fraud case described by a German court as the worst-ever fraud case in Germany in recent times, but the real criminals of which were in Turkey.Unlike the Ergenekon summary execution in the Islamist and allegiant media in Turkey, however, the Lighthouse case made headlines in the media only after official charges were brought in Germany against a group of Nationalist View people having some degree of collaboration with some very important people in Turkish government or bureaucracy and even in doing so no one ever attempted to summary execution. The people that stood trial in Germany were sentenced by a court that said the people it sentenced were people of secondary importance and that the real culprits were in Turkey. In the mean time, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government applied an unprecedented pressure on the media that refused to enter into allegiance with the government and continued reporting on the Lighthouse case or lack of serious handling of the case in Turkey.

Although through the judicial cooperation mechanism the documents and the court verdict on the Lighthouse e.V. Islamist charity fund fraud case were sent to Turkey by Germany, no serious action was taken or a full-fledged probe was launched with the claim that the dossier needed to be translated into Turkish. A second file was sent by Germany, this time after it was translated into Turkish, but the Turkish Justice Ministry tried to stall it as well, first with claims that it needed to be translated into Turkish, then admitting that it was indeed Turkish but after an evaluation it would be sent to the court.

Stalling could not help, eventually, and last week a Turkish court finally issued a very interesting order placing legal restrictions on the use of property belonging to 18 people implicated in the Lighthouse sham, including the head of the Turkish television watchdog, or RTÜK. Even though RTÜK chief Zahit Akman was not officially charged, that decision of the court implicitly made him a "suspect" in the Turkish version of the Lighthouse case.

Akman is an old time friend. I have known him as an honest and hard working TV administrator. But, what I think of him is totally irrelevant. He was elected to that position by Parliament. His position requires him to be "above politics" and definitely to stay away from controversial deals. This is not a political crime, though many people would like to consider it as such. This is a fraud case and the RTÜK chief is implicated in it officially. At least for the sake of not to be a burden on his political mentor, be he the premier or the president, Akman is required to step down even if he might not be guilty. He indeed is too late in stepping down.