After Col. Dursun Çiçek, who allegedly signed a military plot outlining plans to destroy the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government and the faith-based Gülen movement, sent a letter to the press to respond to the charges against him, military prosecutor İ. Volkan Şahin did the same after a controversial recording allegedly featuring his voice was made public.The recording, which was released on a number of Web sites last Friday, revealed that a search at Çiçek’s house after the action plan was published by the media was neglected by Şahin.
The voice allegedly belonging to Şahin confesses to spending more than six hours in Çiçek’s house, but not searching anything. “I conducted the search. It was 11 a.m. when I started and it was 5:20 p.m. when I completed it. One of our officers asked me why the search lasted so long. We ate and drank [in the house]. When it came time to make an explanation [of the search], we said it lasted six-and-a-half hours,” says the voice.
Sending a letter to the press after the release of his alleged voice recording, Şahin said all the charges directed at him in the wake of the voice recording were baseless and not true.
In his letter, Çiçek also defended himself. “The truth will emerge sooner or later. Those who bring a plan that I did not prepare and a signature that does not belong to me to the agenda will be called to account for their allegations both in this world and in the hereafter,” the colonel reportedly wrote in his e-mail.
During the term of former Chief of General Staff Gen. Hilmi Özkök, most military officers were not allowed to speak to the media, as he said that only certain officers were responsible for speaking to the press. Experts say military officers on active duty who speak to the press violate the Internal Service Law.
