According to newspaper reports from Wednesday, military prosecutor Col. Bülent Münger demanded to search top-secret document archives, called the “cosmic room” of the 1st Army, following allegations about Doğan's Sledgehammer document, which was discussed as a seminar subject in 2003 at the Selimiye barracks in İstanbul, according to documents published last month by the Taraf daily. The court of the 1st Military Command initially approved the request and granted the prosecutor a search warrant; however, the 1st Army Command filed an appeal against the warrant. The Naval Forces Northern Command Military Court, which heard the appeal, revoked the search warrant.
The order to start an investigation into the Sledgehammer plan was given by Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ. General Staff legal advisor Hıfzı Çubuklu launched the probe, and the report Çubuklu prepared on the investigation was later referred to Col. Münger, the prosecutor assigned to the case. Münger requested a search of the cosmic room of the 1st Army Command to establish that the alleged Sledgehammer document was authentic.
Unlike civil law, where a ruling overturning another court’s decision can be appealed at the Supreme Court of Appeals, the Northern Command court’s ruling is not subject to further judicial review or appeal. Blocking the search in this fashion effectively turns the investigation into an ordinary probe of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). As such, the focus of the search will not be an alleged coup attempt, but rather the individual who blew the whistle on the Sledgehammer plan, leaking it and the relevant seminar information to the press. The court’s refusal is yet another strong indication that the military courts are not independent and that they adhere strictly to the military chain of command.
When in December of last year some officers were detained as part of an investigation into a potential assassination plot to kill Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, a civilian prosecutor was given a search warrant of the cosmic room of the Special Forces Command at the Tactical Mobilization Group, where the detained officers served as part of that command. Later, the General Staff objected to this at the Ankara 12th High Criminal Court, which had overturned the decision, saying not carrying out a search of the Special Forces Command’s archived documents would only cast doubt on the military’s innocence. The search was conducted by Judge Kadir Kayan of the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court, which had initially issued the warrant. In this incident, the process was completely the opposite of what transpired within the military judiciary as part of the Sledgehammer investigation. If a civilian court had been investigating this, 1st Army Commander Gen. Hasan Iğsız would not have had the right to appeal the warrant in a civil court, and his appeal would have been turned down by a civil court even if he had applied.
A civilian investigation into the coup plot allegations has been launched and is being conducted by a specially authorized prosecutor. The prosecution has submitted more than 5,000 pages that document the generals’ alleged plot to the Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) to establish their authenticity.
