Gülenist prosecutor informed about bomb attack, didn’t take action: Report

ANKARA

HÜRRİYET photo

One of the prosecutors in a controversial case into trucks belonging to the National Intelligence Agency (MİT) case, who was later arrested for alleged links to the network of Fethullah Gülen, was aware of a deadly bombing in the southern province of Hatay, but did not take action to put pressure on the intelligence, according to a report. 

Jailed prosecutor Özcan Şişman was informed about an upcoming bombing on May 11, 2013, which killed 53 people in Hatay’s Reyhanlı district, bordering Syria, but deliberately did not take action, state-run Anadolu Agency on May 11 quoted a Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK) inspection report as saying. 

Şişman wanted to present the attack as a move from a group named Selam Tevhid, in a bid to discredit the national security service, the HSK report said. 

Şişman, who later prepared the indictment on the massacre, was acting together with other members of the Fethullahist Terror Organization (FETÖ) within the security forces, the report also said. 

He postponed a joint operation by the police and MİT on Anas Asalieh, the alleged planner of the attack, and other suspects, it said. 

Şişman also did not order the arrest of Syrian regime-linked Asalieh, who entered Hatay from Syria on March 1, 2013, citing “lack of guns, explosives or any such material in the hands of the suspects,” according to Anadolu Agency. 

In January 2014, Hatay Police Department Counter-terrorism and Organized Crime unit officers stopped a truck which had embarked from Reyhanlı on a tipoff that it was allegedly carrying arms to Syria. 

The truck was stopped near a gendarmerie outpost on the Reyhanlı-Kırıkhan road. The driver and two other men in the truck did not allow the police to conduct a search of the cargo, arguing that they were not authorized to do so, with the statesmen saying that this was an operation by Gülen followers against MİT. 

Şişman was later detained for using ByLock, a mobile application used by the Gülen network.