Scribe files complaint against intel agency

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Journalist Mehmet Baransu speaks to reporters after testifying at a police station against suspected MİT members. DHA photo

Mehmet Baransu of the daily Taraf has filed a complaint with the police against two people he claims have been following him. Baransu believes they are working for the National Intelligence Organization (MİT).

Two people have been taken under custody by the police following Baransu’s complaint.

“I was sitting in a cafe and there was another car waiting behind our car with two people sitting inside. We felt suspicious about that car. When they saw us, they got on to another car.

“Then a blonde woman and a man came to the restaurant. I had seen the man around Tophane and Yeşilköy before and I was suspicious about him then, so I reported the situation with my security,” said Baransu, who gave testimony in the Kocasinan Police Station.

Baransu said there had been worrying incidents ever since he wrote columns on the Uludere case. “The gendarmerie have described me as a ‘PKK member.’ They have listened to my (phone) conversations with fake documents. And since I wrote about the Uludere case, I have been followed,” he said.

Baransu said he couldn’t use his own phone because it was being listened to.

MİT issued a statement one month ago strongly denying reports it supplied the faulty intelligence that prompted the bombing of civilians mistaken for militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Uludere.

Without mentioning him by name, the statement mentioned that Baransu continued to report in his Taraf column that MİT was responsible. The statement went on to say Baransu was seeking to back up his “fabrications” by citing “reports on [PKK] activity at the border, which had nothing to do with the operation that led to the deaths of 35 people.”