A report by judiciary inspectors regarding former prosecutor Özcan Şişman and his suspected links to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) has revealed that Şişman covered up tip-offs regarding a 2013 terror attack in southern Turkey that killed 53 people and attempted to link the attack to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT). Şişman was arrested following an investigation into a controversial raid on trucks belonging to the MİT, which paved the way for FETÖ to spread its propaganda accusing Turkey of secretly supplying weapons to Syria.
The former prosecutor was the one who ordered the raid and further investigation revealed he also had direct links to FETÖ, the terrorist group being blamed for last year's coup attempt.
The Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK) had launched a separate investigation into.
The inquiry, the details of which were released by the state-run Anadolu Agency, revealed that the former prosecutor sought to blame MİT for orchestrating the attack.
At the same time Şişman attempted to link the attack to a terrorist group he and other prosecutors concocted in a plot to imprison critics of FETÖ.
Thus, he ultimately fabricated a link between MİT and the terrorist group.
The report says Şişman collaborated with infiltrators of the terrorist group in law enforcement to "serve the purpose of FETÖ to defame Turkey."
The former prosecutor was aware of the plot by suspected mastermind Anas Asalieh and despite a decision by the intelligence service and police to move to stop the plot, he blocked the efforts.
The attack in Reyhanlı, a town near Turkey's border with Syria, is blamed on terrorists associated with the Assad regime in Syria.
Authorities sought to conduct surveillance on Asalieh and his associates and gave the greenlight in an operation against the suspects.
The police were aware that Asalieh entered Turkey in March 2013 but Şişman, claiming that there was a lack of evidence to prove that Asalieh and other suspects possessed explosives, delayed the order for an operation.
Although an intelligence report released three days before the terror attack pointed to a possible bombing plot, Şişman ignored the warning and instead, ordered his subordinates to "collect more evidence" rather than carrying out an counterterror operation, the HSK report says.
The case carries striking similarities to the process leading up to the murder of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.
The latest investigation had revealed that gendarmerie intelligence officials and police officers were aware of a murder plot prior to Dink's murder when he was gunned down in Istanbul in 2007, allegedly ignoring the warnings deliberately.
Several gendarmerie intelligence officers working for a FETÖ-linked military officer even followed both Dink and his assassin Ogün Samast before the murder and were present at the crime scene when Samast fired at Dink.
Despite having knowledge of the murder plot, FETÖ-linked officials turned a blind eye to it, apparently in a bid to gain from the murder itself, prosecutors investigating the case say.
The Dink murder would later be blamed on another terrorist group concocted by FETÖ-linked prosecutors and several prominent figures known for their opposition to FETÖ were imprisoned.
FETÖ is accused of masterminding the July 15 coup attempt last year that killed 248 people and injured hundreds.
Critics of FETÖ say the group was bent on infiltrating MİT and to achieve this, they sought the suspension of intelligence service administrators by implicating them in cases like the Reyhanlı attack.
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