Fresh specifics regarding one of the bloodiest terrorist attacks in Turkey, in which two bombings killed 53 people and injured 200 in the Reyhanlı district of the southern province of Hatay, have revealed that intelligence that could have prevented the attacks that was shared with former Adana Public Prosecutor Özcan Şişman, was largely downplayed.
Şişman, a prosecutor allegedly affiliated with the Gülen Movement, which is considered a threat to the government, is currently under arrest for involvement in the stopping of the MİT trucks in January 2014 without being authorized to issue any order for interception.
Media close to the Gülen Movement have been running a slew of articles accusing MİT of failing to act in time since the Reyhanlı incident. The articles claim the attacks could have been prevented if the MİT had provided the necessary institutions with the intelligence they required on time through keeping tabs on the suspects. However, Habertürk daily published an article with details from the trial and reported that the MİT fulfilled its task, but the warnings were underestimated by both Şişman and the police.
On May 11, 2013, a car bomb exploded outside the town hall in Reyhanlı, a district of Hatay province bordering Syria. Three minutes later, another car bomb exploded outside a nearby post office. Nineteen defendants, nine of whom are under arrest, are being tried at the Ankara 9th High Criminal Court.
The suspects include Mihraç Ural and Nasır Eskiocak, Turkish citizens with ties to Syrian intelligence. The alleged mastermind of the attack is Omar al-Hatip, an intelligence officer working for Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.
The third hearing of the trial will be held in Ankara on July 10. The court asked the MİT and the police department about the intelligence they received before the attacks were carried out and what process followed. Upon a request by the court, the institutions conveyed the texting and the kind of process they conducted.
According to new details, the local police were sent 13 notices of warning by the MİT,which also made contact with the related prosecutor. The suspects Murat Özdeş, Yusuf Nazik and Eskiocak began being wiretapped upon a note issued on May 9 before the attacks. Another four suspects were also wiretapped on a court order.
Officers at MİT coordinated with the prosecutor's office and the police department urgently. With additional recruitment of officers, 24-hour monitoring was conducted. On the evening of May 10, MİT sent detailed information to the Hatay Police Department that two buses registered to Hatay could be used by the suspects for the attacks. MİT demanded that the suspects be detained and the prosecutor on duty to be conferred, although it meant taking some risks.
However, Şişman, who was contacted, implied these measures could be useless as he said with the evidence they had, the suspects could be released and more concrete proof was needed for a "satisfying result." Şişman also said the suspects could defend themselves as "joking around" regarding the information gained through wiretapping.
Şişman reportedly said they should not rush until concrete evidence is found.
The MİT also asked the Hatay Police Department to detain and interrogate the suspects late on May 9, saying it would also contribute to the inquiry, but Şişman, upon the repeated warning, said the service has the right to be concerned and that "it has been observed that the institution has fulfilled their task, and the rest is under the responsibility of the police department."
The vehicles used in the attacks were later learned to be those mentioned in the notes sent by MİT to the Hatay Police Department.
The Gülen Movement is a transnational movement led by the U.S.-based imam Fethullah Gülen. It is accused of wiretapping thousands of people including government officials and encrypted phones. It has over 140 private schools around the world including in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa. It has been accused of infiltrating state institutions in Turkey and trying to overthrow the government. Government officials have continuously expressed their determination to continue to lawfully fight the Gülen Movement, whose followers are accused of infiltrating state institutions to gain control of state mechanisms and illegal wiretapping, forgery of official documents and spying.
