Terrorism and Criminal Organisation Accusations
The claim that Alparslan Kuytul was responsible for the foundation's affairs
Unfounded
Claim
Fact
This claim belongs to the file opened by the operation of 30 January 2018, which came before the court on 22 January 2019. Alparslan Kuytul was arrested on 8 February 2018; the ground for his arrest was the assumption that he was responsible for the acts attributed to the foundation.
The document that refutes that assumption is inside the file itself. The inspection report of the Directorate General of Foundations, placed on page 50 of the indictment, records the following: Alparslan Kuytul is one of the founders of the foundation, but he holds no office on the board of trustees, the executive organ of the foundation; his speeches and actions do not place him in a position constituting an offence under foundations legislation.
Kuytul reminded the court of this finding at the hearing of 10 May 2019:
"When the inspection report of the Directorate General of Foundations says 'Alparslan Kuytul cannot be held responsible for anything, because he has never been in the management since 1994', tell me, Your Honour, why am I in prison?"
Quite apart from the document, the structure of the file itself leads to the same place. The accusations were based on the period 2014–2018. The members of the board of directors of those years were at liberty; those arrested, on the other hand, were the founder, who had never been in the management, and the last chairman, who had been in post for six months. If responsibility runs through the management, why were the administrators outside; if it does not, why was the founder inside?
Kuytul's detention began on 8 February 2018 and ended on 5 December 2019. Throughout the whole of that period, the document showing that he could not be held responsible was sitting inside the file.
What does the document say?
Following the applications made about the Furkan Foundation, the Directorate General of Foundations carried out an inspection and wrote its report. The report was later added to the indictment prepared by the Adana Chief Public Prosecutor's Office; the relevant section appears on page 50 of the indictment.
There are two separate findings in the report. The first: in response to the claim that the administrators of the foundation belonged to a terrorist structure, the names of the administrators were queried with the State of Emergency Bureau of the Adana Governorship, and no serious finding was encountered. The second: it was seen that Alparslan Kuytul, who is one of the founders of the foundation but holds no office on the board of trustees, which is its executive organ, is not, through his speeches and actions, in a position constituting an offence under foundations legislation.
The same page also contains the answer the foundations administration gave to an applicant who asked for proceedings to be taken against him: that no concrete act or ground was shown in the application, that the matter falls essentially within the field of the prosecutors' offices, and that there is no step that can be taken by the administration in this respect.
Why does the board of trustees matter?
In foundations, legal responsibility belongs to the people who appear in the official record as the governing organ. The board of trustees is the executive organ of the foundation: it is the body that takes the decision, signs, and makes the expenditure. Supervision, too, runs through this organ.
Alparslan Kuytul was among the founders when the foundation was established on 22 November 1994. After that date he held no office in the governing organ in any period. A person's being regarded as the spiritual leader of an institution does not make them responsible for that institution's transactions; criminal responsibility is personal and attaches to a person's own act. And this is exactly what the report says.
The contradiction inside the file itself
The events on which the indictment rests belong to the years 2014–2018. Even so, there is no arrest in respect of the chairman and the members of the board of directors of that period. Those arrested are two people: the founder, who had never been in the management, and the last chairman, Ali Alagöz, who had been in post for six months.
Kuytul summed up this picture in a telephone conversation he made from prison:
"The old management and the new one are free, I and the 6-month chairman are inside… For one thing, I hold no administrative post in the foundation, I am only its founder."
Beyond whether one person is in the right, the question is whether the claim's own logic holds. If there is an offence in the foundation's affairs, responsibility runs through the management and would have reached the administrators of those years. If responsibility does not run through the management, it would never have reached a person who had never been an administrator. The file took neither of these two roads.
What did Kuytul say in court?
At the hearing of 10 May 2019 he said the following about the indictment as a whole:
"This indictment drawn up against me has been framed according to possibilities and assumptions; while being identical with the police summary report, it contains legal errors and is full of slanders."
In the same defence statement he also noted that the events made the subject of the trial fall essentially within the field of the civil courts and not of the High Criminal Court; the administration and supervision of foundations is the subject not of a criminal case but of foundations legislation.
The duration
Kuytul was arrested on 8 February 2018. By 19 May 2019 his detention had reached sixteen months; release came on 5 December 2019. Throughout the whole of that period the document showing that he could not be held responsible was sitting in the file.
As of 6 August 2019 there were also things in the file that had not been done: the secret witnesses whose identities were known to the court had not been heard, the receipts seized by the police and the sample receipts submitted by the lawyers had not been examined, the students given scholarships had not been called, and the reports and court decisions concerning the places alleged to be dormitories had not been taken into account.
Related pages: the claim that the Furkan Foundation is a criminal organisation · the claim that the speeches complained of constituted an offence. The information here belongs to the operation of 30 January 2018 and to the file of 2018–2019; it should not be confused with another, ongoing judicial process.