Prosecutor stands behind specially authorized courts

İsmail Saymaz ISTANBUL / Radikal

Berk also respondsto accusations of being a follower of the Fethullah Gülen movement. ‘I laughed for three days when I heard the claims,’ he says. DHA photo

A prosecutor who was removed from Turkey’s match-fixing probe has said that specially authorized courts should not be cancelled, even though he has recently been reassigned by the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK).

The top prosecutor in the match-fixing case, Mehmet Berk, was reassigned as Küçükçekmece’s deputy chief prosecutor on June 13. Berk said he himself had applied for the change of duty. He said he was expecting the reassignment and that it had nothing to do with the match-fixing case.

When asked about the cancelling of Special Authority Courts, Berk said they were as necessary as the anti-organized crime police.

The Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) staged a major judicial overhaul on June 13, removing specially authorized prosecutors from major coup cases and reassigning them to higher offices amid a continued debate over the Special Authority Courts. The courts were founded by the ruling Justice and Development party in 2005. They played a key role in the government’s fight against coup plotters, terror-related crimes such as the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases and in the probe against the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK).