The claim that he insulted Atatürk

Which file, which period?

The subject of this page is file number 2019/472 of the Adana 28th Criminal Court of First Instance. The charge is publicly insulting the memory of Atatürk on account of a speech.

The file is separate from the terrorism file opened by the operation of 30 January 2018 and heard in the assize court; the two processes should not be confused. The only thing they have in common is timing: the investigation was carried out during the detention that began for Kuytul on 8 February 2018.

The first statement: this speech is not mine

While he was in prison he was asked to give a defence about this speech. What he was shown was not the video of the speech but its written transcript. In his statement to the prosecution over SEGBİS he said the speech was not his and asked that the recording be obtained from the police.

This is the easiest kind of defence to prove: you look at the recording of the speech and you see who is speaking. Kuytul's face and voice are a face and a voice recognised by millions.

What did the expert say?

The recording was found and placed in the file. When the CD was examined it could be seen that the person making the speech was not Kuytul. This finding was also set out in an expert report.

In the normal course of things an investigation would have been expected to end here: the act alleged was committed by someone else, and it has no connection with the suspect. Instead the prosecution took the file to court.

The defence: an application for immediate acquittal

In his petition of 16 December 2019, Kuytul's lawyer Adem Tural asked for an immediate acquittal. The points on which the petition rested were these:

• When the CD in the file is examined it can plainly be seen that the speaker is someone else; even searching Kuytul's name online and comparing the photographs that come up is enough.
• An indictment prepared without examining the evidence and without connecting the alleged act to the suspect violates a person's right not to be stigmatised. On this point the petition relied on the decision of the 3rd Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation of 25 March 2015.
• Under article 193/2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, where a decision other than conviction is to be given, it may be given without questioning the accused; that is, the hearings need not be continued in order to grant an immediate acquittal.
• Under article 223/9 of the same code, where the conditions for an immediate acquittal exist, no decision to stay, to discontinue, or that no penalty be imposed may be given.

The substance of the petition can be summed up in one sentence: watching the recording inside the file is enough to see that the accused has nothing whatever to do with the subject of the case.

The hearing of 6 February 2020

The court did not acquit. It ruled that the video and audio recording be sent to Ankara for forensic examination and that the hearing be adjourned so that the proceedings could continue in the light of the result.

Kuytul was not in detention at that date; he had been released on 5 December 2019. So the decision did not have the effect of extending a detention — what it did have as its effect was that a person already established not to be the speaker went on bearing the status of an accused.

Why does this page exist?

Because the life of a claim does not end the moment it is disproved. In this file the claim had been disproved before the case was even opened; and yet the case was opened, a hearing was held and the process dragged on. In the meantime the sentence that stayed in the news was this: a case has been opened against him for insulting Atatürk.

The dates on this page belong to the period 2018–2020 and should not be confused with a separate judicial process continuing today. Developments after the hearing of 6 February 2020 are outside the scope of this page.