The "He Was Found in the Wrong in the Adnan Oktar Case" Claim
Partly true
Claim
Fact
This page concerns the defamation case that Adnan Oktar brought against Alparslan Kuytul. The file belongs to 2014 and earlier; it has nothing to do with the operation against the Furkan Foundation on 30 January 2018, with the arrest on 8 February 2018, or with that investigation. These are separate files.
The core of the claim is true: the case ended against Kuytul and damages were awarded. We begin the page by stating this.
How the ruling was arrived at, however, is never mentioned in the claim:
- The adverse ruling was given in a single hearing, and damages were awarded in that same hearing.
- Kuytul's application for a retrial was accepted and a date was set. He travelled to Istanbul for the hearing and said "I have brought additional files"; he was given no chance to speak, and his request was rejected in a hearing that lasted a few minutes.
- His request that the public records on which his words rested be called in from the relevant institutions was not granted — although a few months earlier another judge had called in those same records.
What this pointed to became clear before a year had passed. According to a press report dated 8 March 2015, a judge recalled the "has no criminal capacity" report that Adnan Oktar had obtained from the Council of Forensic Medicine in 1987 and ruled that it be brought into the file. After that, Oktar's lawyers began filing petitions stating that they were dropping hundreds of cases.
Why this label, "Partly true"?
Because there is a part that is true, and it is not being hidden: an adverse ruling and an award of damages really do exist.
But this is neither a fault nor a verified accusation. The existence of a ruling does not mean that the claim was proved; a ruling given without evidence being submitted and without the defence being heard shows only how the file was conducted. Besides, the fact that the same lawyers withdrew hundreds of cases in 2015 once a single document came up raises, on its own, the question of what these rulings measure.
For the words the case was about: the "He insulted Adnan Oktar" claim.
Which period does the file belong to?
Everything on this page belongs to 2014 and earlier. The subject is a defamation case that Adnan Oktar brought against Alparslan Kuytul, and it has no connection with the operation against the Furkan Foundation carried out in Adana on 30 January 2018, or with the arrest and trial that followed. The two should not be confused.
What the case was about is the answer Kuytul gave years ago to a question put to him; those words themselves are dealt with on a separate page: the "He insulted Adnan Oktar" claim.
The first ruling: a single hearing
The case was decided against Kuytul at the first hearing, and damages were awarded in that same hearing. We are not concealing this; this part of what the person raising the claim says is true.
But the weight of a court ruling depends on the procedural steps that come before it. The outcome of proceedings in which evidence was gathered, the parties were heard and objections were addressed does not mean the same thing as a ruling given in a single sitting.
The second hearing: "I have brought additional files"
Kuytul applied for a retrial against this ruling. His application was accepted and he was given a hearing date. On the appointed day he travelled to Istanbul; at the hearing he said that he had brought additional files.
According to what he says, he was not allowed to speak a single word, and within a few minutes the hearing closed with the rejection of his request. His own assessment was this:
"It appears that instructions are coming from somewhere and that nobody is allowed to speak."
The documents that could not be submitted
What Kuytul wanted entered into the file was not his own interpretation but official records: the "has no criminal capacity" report drawn up by the Council of Forensic Medicine during proceedings in 1986–1987, and other medical board reports from the same period. His request was that these reports be called in from the relevant institutions.
The request was rejected. The striking point is this: a few months earlier, a judge sitting at another court had ruled that the same reports be called in. So what was being asked for was not unusual; it had already been done by another judge.
This page does not go into the content of the reports. The medical history of a third person is not the subject here. The only reason the documents are mentioned is that the merits of the case depend on them: whether the words had a basis could be understood only by examining that basis.
8 March 2015: the same document, a different court
Before a year had passed, the same document came up in a different file. According to a press report dated 8 March 2015, a judge asked the question that had never been asked in the cases brought up to that day, and ruled that the 1987 report be called in from the relevant court.
What happened afterwards is recounted in the report as follows:
- Adnan Oktar's lawyers stated that they were withdrawing the complaint.
- The judges of the other courts where the same lawyers were appearing also ruled to call in the report.
- Thereupon petitions stating that hundreds of cases were being dropped began to be filed.
The report also gives the assessment of jurists: on behalf of a person who holds a report stating that they have no criminal capacity, a case can be brought only through a guardian; lawyers cannot by law act as representatives in these cases.
So what does this whole picture say?
Over roughly ten years, Adnan Oktar had brought thousands of defamation cases through his lawyers. In every file that ended adversely, the defending side paid both the lawyers' fees and the cost of the damages case brought afterwards. This is a picture whose files, looked at one by one, appear as a "court ruling", and which, looked at as a whole, gives the appearance of a working arrangement.
The ruling against Kuytul is one of the files inside this picture. Presenting that ruling on its own as if it were evidence therefore means ignoring how the ruling was given and why, a year later, those same files were withdrawn.
The label of this page is "Partly true": both the ruling and the damages are real. The part that is not true is counting them as proof of the claim. A ruling given without the defence being heard and without evidence being submitted shows not what is true, but how the file was conducted.