In its final verdict, the German court said some 17 million euros collected from benefactors by Deniz Feneri were sent to Turkey through illegal means; 8 million euros of this were transferred to a separate organization, also named Deniz Feneri, in Turkey and the rest was used for other purposes. The fraud scandal had caused an increasingly fierce polemic in Turkey between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the owner of the Doğan business and media group, Aydın Doğan, when newspapers belonging to Doğan published news reports implicating Erdoğan in the case. The fight quickly became heated, with Erdoğan accusing Doğan media outlets of attacking him and his government as revenge for the earlier rejection of some business favors Doğan had sought. Although the case has been concluded in Germany, it seems that the debates surrounding its links in Turkey will continue to dominate the agenda for a long while.According to Yeni Şafak's Yasin Doğan, the debates surrounding the Deniz Feneri case reflect a multidimensional struggle among power circles in Turkey. He acknowledges that the corruption of Deniz Feneri in Germany is indefensible, but he says it is wrong to wage a war against all charity organizations and become suspicious of their activities just because of this case. "It is a necessity to take a stance against any wrongdoing, no matter who is responsible, in order to minimize the negative effects of that wrongdoing. However, trying to exhaust other people or institutions that have nothing to do with that wrongdoing is a big mistake," Doğan says. On the subject of the row between Erdoğan and Aydın Doğan, he says Doğan used the Deniz Feneri case as a means to defame the government and news articles in his newspapers about this case went beyond journalism and harbored a political dimension.
Hürriyet's Cüneyt Ülsever, referring to a German judge's remark that the masterminds behind the Deniz Feneri fraud were actually in Turkey, calls on Turkish prosecutors to request the necessary files from Germany and initiate a court case. "If we cannot prosecute the masterminds of this fraud case, our prime minister does not deserve to be the co-chairman of the Alliance of Civilizations initiative. He will only be a subject of ridicule," Ülsever writes. He further mentions that the prosecution of the masterminds in Turkey is very important for preventing other criminally inclined people who want to abuse the charity of this nation from accomplishing their goals. "More importantly, if Turkey is a state of law, those who even dare to rely on the government for their wrongdoing should be tried," Ülsever says.
Sabah's Emre Aköz argues that there is a lesson that conservatives who have a tendency to trust people due to their seemingly religious credentials should take from this fraud case. "For many years, with a pro-congregation mentality, they said 'this guy is not someone who would commit a crime,' 'that guy is not someone to engage in fraud.' But anyone can engage in fraud, corruption and theft.' The Turks in Germany made donations to Deniz Feneri assuming that it could not engage in corruption. They did not ask for receipts. They did not question where their money was being used. They have trusted certain individuals in that organization for years. Nevertheless, if the organization had really been run according to regulations, the money collected would have been used for its actual purpose and the convicted people would not or could not have committed crimes," Aköz says. He suggests that it is high time for conservative circles that place so much trust in Muslim solidarity to stick with legal and responsible organizations from now on.
