The "he knew about the coup in advance" claim
Unfounded
Claim
Fact
This claim rests on a clipped recording put into circulation immediately after the coup attempt of 15 July 2016. The speech the recording was taken from is dated 1 July 2016; those spreading the claim, however, presented it as though it had been made on 14 July 2016. That is the only thing they did.
Which date is the correct one can be seen from the calendar. 14 July 2016 is a Thursday; yet the exegesis lesson in which the words were spoken has been held on Fridays for twenty-two years. 1 July 2016, on the other hand, is a Friday — and indeed the news of the coup was likewise announced at the end of the same programme, on the night of Friday 15 July 2016.
The two weeks in between change the meaning of the sentence entirely. Taken as having been said one day before the coup, it looks like a prophecy or a threat; read on its own date, it is the last link in a political assessment that had been repeated for months.
Nor was that same observation voiced for the first time that day. Kuytul had used the metaphor of the government's "pen having been broken" on 10 February 2016 too, when he was asked about US Vice-President Biden's visit to Ankara, and he repeated the same warning in March 2016 — that is, months before the coup.
Its basis was not secret information either, but foreign-policy developments that everyone was following in the newspapers: the US President's unwillingness to meet the President, the protocol attitudes shown towards the President at international ceremonies, the German parliament's adoption of the Armenian genocide resolution. From these Kuytul concluded that certain powers had decided to finish off the government, and he warned that care should be taken.
In his own words: "Mine is an analysis; it is God who knows the unseen…"
As for the coup attempt itself, he stated plainly that he had not expected it: "I saw that the government's pen had been broken. But I did not expect that they would have it done by the community."
That the same words counted as an insult to the President is a separate claim, and it ended in acquittal on 10 January 2019: The "his pen has been broken" insult claim.
Two dates, one sentence
The whole of the claim consists of a shifting of dates. The speech was made on 1 July 2016; the coup attempt took place on the night of 15 July 2016. There are two weeks in between. Those who circulated the recording gave the date of the speech as 14 July and thereby moved the sentence to the eve of the coup.
This is a distortion carried out without changing the words, and for exactly that reason it is hard to notice. The sentence is the same sentence; all that changes is the date above it.
Checking was not hard either. The speech was not made at a closed meeting but in a programme that was recorded and published; the recording has a date of its own. The one thing those spreading the claim had to do was look at that date. It was not looked at, because once it was, there was no story left to tell.
The calendar alone was enough as well: 14 July 2016 falls on a Thursday and 1 July 2016 on a Friday, and the exegesis lesson in which the words were spoken has been held on Fridays for twenty-two years. This detail is taken up point by point under a separate heading: How was the date of the speech changed?
What was the basis of the statement?
Kuytul's assessment at the time rested not on a secret source but on developments open to the public:
- the US Vice-President's not meeting the President during his visit to Turkey,
- the US President's unwillingness to meet the President,
- the attitude shown towards the President at Muhammad Ali's funeral,
- the protocol-defying seating arrangement the President was given on the Uganda visit,
- the German parliament's adoption of the Armenian genocide resolution.
The conclusion he drew from these was this: certain great powers have decided to finish off the government, the prestige the government has gained is being taken back one by one, and care must be taken.
Nor did he make this assessment for the first time on 1 July. When he was asked about Biden's Ankara visit on 10 February 2016, he read the statements made during the visit as a message given to the government and used the same metaphor there too; in March 2016 he warned the government once more in the same direction. That is, the speech of 1 July 2016 is the repetition of an assessment that had begun months before the coup.
A warning or a threat?
The part of the speech that was cut out answers the question. There Kuytul says not that he will do something to the government but that the government will be caught unprepared by something, and he closes his words like this: "If they listen to me it is for their own good; if they do not, that is their own affair."
The sentence of a man who is making threats does not end like this. This is the sentence of a warning given for the benefit of the one addressed.
Was he expecting the coup?
The answer he gave when asked directly is clear: he saw that the government was being politically isolated, but he did not expect this to turn into a military coup, still less that it would be made to be carried out by a particular community. His expectation was not even in that direction; he considered an intervention from outside more likely.
The difference between reading a political course of events and knowing a coup plan stands right here. The first is something anyone who reads the newspapers can do; the second is a crime. The claim is built on presenting the first as the second.
He set his own measure himself
While recounting that same assessment, Kuytul also stated the limit of what he was doing:
"Mine is an analysis; it is God who knows the unseen…"
That a man who does not claim to know the unseen should be accused of having known about the coup in advance shows that the source of the claim is not his own words. The source is the clipped recording.
What this claim amounted to in law
The same speech became the subject of two separate accusations. The claim of knowing about the coup in advance was not even made the subject of a case after the prosecutor's examination. As for the accusation of insulting the President, an acquittal was handed down on 10 January 2019.
The acquittal and the question whether the words could be counted an insult are taken up under a separate heading: The "his pen has been broken" insult claim. For the other clipped recording circulated in the same period: The claim of a "coup-loving foundation" and the Directorate General's examination.