Officers from the General Staff came to the Beşiktaş Courthouse in İstanbul on Tuesday to take the document as well as a copy of a Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) report confirming that the signature found on the document belongs to Col. Dursun Çiçek. The officers left the courthouse after meeting with İstanbul Deputy Chief Prosecutor Turan Çolakkadı.
According to the plot, which was made public in June of last year, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) had a systematic plan to damage the image of the AK Party government and the Gülen movement in the eyes of the public, to play down the Ergenekon investigation and to gather support for members of the military arrested as part of the Ergenekon inquest. Recalling that the General Staff Military Prosecutor’s Office requested the original copy of the document four months ago, Çolakkadı said they handed in the document to couriers of the General Staff on Tuesday.
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A copy of the action plan was found by the police during a raid of lawyer Serdar Öztürk’s house on June 7, 2009, as part of the Ergenekon investigation. Çiçek, a naval officer who serves at the 3rd Information and Support Branch Directorate of the General Staff’s Mobilization Department, was arrested in July 2009 after being taken to the Beşiktaş Courthouse. However, he was released soon after due to lack of evidence, as the investigators only had a copy of the document at that stage.
At the time, Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ convened a press conference in which he referred to the document as a “piece of paper” in legal terms. In October 2009, an anonymous person mailed the original document to the İstanbul Prosecutor’s Office. The document’s authenticity was confirmed after examination by the ATK.
