Prosecutors to seek consent in MİT case

ISTANBUL

A prominent columnist has claimed that despite prosecutors’ withdrawal of a standing order to detain four intelligence officers on Feb. 20, they will still go ahead and seek the prime minister’s permission to proceed with their investigations.

Taha Akyol of daily Hürriyet wrote in his column yesterday that the prosecutors’ written demand for permission would reach the Office of the Prime Ministry in the next few days.

The written demand will be submitted to the prime minister, and the file will contain all the documents and allegations that have caused the prosecutors to suspect a crime has been committed. The prime minister will have experts examine the file and make a decision. According to Akyol, permission will surely not be granted, because the amendment to Article 26 of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) law was made specifically for this purpose.

It would have been more politically correct to introduce a permission system for all top executives in the public service, rather than only MİT executives, according to Akyol.

“Can the MİT undersecretary be called a ‘terrorist’? Can the chief of general staff or a student staging a nonviolent demonstration on the street be called a ‘terrorist’?

“The definition of a terrorist organization in the Criminal Procedure Law (CMK) and Anti-Terror Law (TMY) is so vague that this kind of strangeness becomes possible,” Akyol wrote.