This man is absolutely out of control. Erdogan is trying to make this journalist, who exposed the video footage of his weapons smuggling to Syria, pay a very heavy price for it by filing a criminal complaint against him and asking for life in prison:
HURRIYET DAILY NEWS – A Turkish prosecutor has demanded aggravated life sentence along with a life sentence and 42 years jail term for daily Cumhuriyet’s editor-in-chief Can Dündar as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has filed a criminal complaint over a critical news report, after he said they would pay a “heavy price.”
The footage released by Cumhuriyet on May 29 showed gendarmerie and police officers opening crates on the back of the trucks which contain what the daily described as weapons and ammunition sent to Syria by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) in January 2014.
“This slander and illegitimate operation against the MİT are, in a way, an act of espionage. This newspaper is involved in this espionage activity, too,” Erdoğan said during an interview with public broadcaster TRT late May 31. “I suppose the person who wrote this as an exclusive report will pay a heavy price for this,” he added, referring to Cumhuriyet’s editor-in-chief, Can Dündar.
On June 2, scores of Cumhuriyet editors and columnists appeared on the newspaper’s front page, proclaiming that all of them were responsible for the report in tandem with a social media campaign, #CanDündarYalnızDeğildir (Can Dündar is not alone).
Continuing his tough stance on the matter, Erdoğan filed an individual criminal complaint against Dündar and Cumhuriyet on June 2, claiming that the story “included some footage and information that are not factual.”
The criminal complaint, filed to Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office to be sent to Istanbul where Cumhuriyet is based, argued that the newspaper “joined the actions” of the followers of U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, Erdoğan’s erstwhile ally, whose followers in the judicial and security organs are now described by the government as “the parallel organization.”
“By publishing the fabricated footage and information that were leaked to him by the parallel organization, [Dündar] joined the actions of the organization members who searched the trucks and plotted with fabricated evidence to create a perception in the scope of a planned setup as if the Republic of Turkey has been helping terrorist organizations,” the complaint said.
The footage is real and even Reuters wrote about this recently:
THE GUARDIAN – Reuters reported on 21 May, citing a prosecutor and court testimony, that MIT helped deliver arms to parts of Syria under Islamist rebel control in late 2013 and early 2014.
The witness testimony contradicts Turkey’s denials that it sent arms to Syrian rebels and, by extension, contributed to the rise of Islamic State, now a major concern for the Nato member.
Syria and some of Turkey’s western allies say Turkey, in its haste to see President Bashar al-Assad toppled, let fighters and arms over the border, some of whom went on to join Isis which now controls swaths of Syria and Iraq.
Cumhuriyet said its video dated from 19 January, 2014 but did not say how it had obtained the footage.
Even Joe Biden told the truth about Turkey smuggling arms into Syria before he was forced to apologize:
As I said, Erdogan is out of control and it’s no wonder most of the media there is now in the tank for him, considering the consequences of doing real journalism.
I am glad to see the editors and columnists from CumHurriyet stick together and defend their editor in chief, Can Dündar. But alas, I fear it is already too late for him. I’m not sure even international outrage can save him now.