The original copy of the document was mailed to a civilian prosecutor in İstanbul. A forensic examination revealed that the signature on the copy is genuine and belongs to Col. Dursun Çiçek, who is believed to have prepared the document. Some circles, however, seem not to have been convinced by the forensic report. Shortly after the report was issued they started to claim that the signature on the document does not belong to the colonel and was produced by a signature machine called an autopen. An autopen is a machine that produces a signature automatically.
The claim was first put forward by the colonel’s lawyer, who said his client was the victim of a slander campaign. “There is an ongoing campaign against my client. It is possible to imitate a genuine signature with a machine,” said Mustafa Çevik. Shortly afterwards, some Turkish newspapers started to report about autopens, claiming that it is almost impossible to make a distinction between a signature produced by hand and one produced by the machine.
What they ignore, however, are the traces a hand leaves on a document being signed during the signature process. When signing a document, pressure is applied by the hand on the paper, leaving behind an imprint. The autopen does not have the ability to reproduce that imprint on the paper, which means a forensic examination can easily distinguish between a signature produced by hand and a signature produced by a signature machine.
