The earlier decision of the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court read that the suspects of the attack were actually responsible for the attack and had committed the crime with religious motivations. There were already suggestions that the Council of State attack was related to a general conspiracy prepared by Ergenekon members aiming to destabilize the country so as to create the convenient medium for a military intervention, and the court had, interestingly, referred to these allegations in its decision and said that there was no reason and no evidence to relate the attack to Ergenekon.Months later, a criminal chamber from the Court of Appeals found the evidence of the Ergenekon prosecutor "so convincing" that it reversed the decision of the Ankara court. Yesterday, the Ankara court decided to uphold the decision of the criminal chamber and send the dossiers of the Council of State attack case to İstanbul, to be merged with the Ergenekon case being heard at the İstanbul 13th High Criminal Court.
This decision has legal implications. With it, the Ergenekon case has attained the first "red-handed" evidence -- if, of course, the prosecution manages to convince the judges that the attack on the Council of State was in fact a setup by the Ergenekon terrorist organization. But this decision already suggests that a courthouse which had earlier denied any kind of relationship between the Council of State attack and the Ergenekon organization is already convinced of the fact that there is enough evidence to legitimize a reversal of the court decision and a review of the case.
On the one hand, there is a media group that literally cannot be convinced with the relevance of claims put forth by the Ergenekon prosecutor and, on the other, there is an independent judiciary. Even the judges are changing their mind after seeing the evidence, but our media barons and aged columnists still stick to their original positions. I believe this is oriental Orientalism. They believe they know the truth because, according to them, only what they know has the right to be labeled the truth. Not only are they untouchable, their knowledge cannot be negated. Their convictions, too, are unquestionable.
The Ankara 11th High Criminal Court's decision came at a very critical time. The Ergenekon prosecutor had put himself into a difficult situation, apparently, due to the recent detentions that included "education angels" such as Professor Türkan Saylan. Saylan is not only "decent and intellectual," she is also suffering from cancer treatment. Ergenekon-deniers were went ballistic when they saw Saylan's house searched for several hours. Even a Cabinet minister fell for the media propaganda that followed: Such an innocent, decent, angel-like figure should not have been visited by policemen! Under such widespread criticism, the Ankara court would have easily turned a blind eye to the evidence of the Ergenekon prosecutor.
It didn't. This decision does not say anything about the legitimacy or consistency of the prosecutor's move to detain certain ex-university rectors and "education angels," but it says something more: "The Ergenekon case is such a strong case that it won't be disturbed by some moves that may in the end be called mistakes. This is so even in the eyes of the judges who are not very sympathetic to the idea that there may have been organized centers in Turkey that produced crime and blamed it on Muslim groups."
The Atatürkist Thought Association (ADD) filed a complaint about the Ergenekon prosecutors yesterday -- the same day the judicial apparatus was applauding the very prosecutors for their work. With the unification of the Council of State attack case and the Ergenekon case, the future will never be the future some retired army generals dreamt of for Turkey.
Ergenekon will create a culture of facing the dark pages of our own past through which we will open new bright pages for our own future.
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