Acquittal decision for all defendants in the case in Ankara

The hearing at the Ankara 33rd High Criminal Court was attended by undetained defendants Chief Inspector Ercan Karagöz, the then deputy police chief in charge of the Public Order Branch Directorate Oben Özay, police Serdar Coşkun, former provincial deputy police chief in charge of the Organized Crimes Fighting Branch Alp Aslan and Bora Kaplan, who was detained in another case.

The presiding judge gave the floor to the public prosecutor to explain his opinion on the merits. The prosecutor stated that there was not enough evidence to punish the undetained defendants for the crimes charged against them and requested the acquittal of the defendants.

The promised unarrested defendants Alp Arslan, Ercan Karagöz, Oben Özay and Serdar Coşkun also requested acquittal from the court, saying that they agreed with the prosecutor's opinion.

Defendant Bora Kaplan, who was tried without arrest in this file but was detained in another file, claimed that the reason why he was tried in Ankara 33rd High Criminal Court was the police officers mentioned in the current trial and requested acquittal.

The defendant's lawyers also requested the court to acquit their clients.

Announcing its decision after the statements, the court decided to acquit all the defendants on the grounds that there was no definitive opinion that they committed the crimes charged against them, and evaluated that the statements given by Alp Arslan, one of the defendants, during the hearing were contradictory and decided to file a criminal complaint against Arslan.

BACKGROUND OF THE CASE

In the investigation initiated by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, it was determined that "high amounts of money were deposited into the bank accounts of the Ankara Police Department's Organized Crimes Fighting Branch Directorate, former deputy provincial police chief Alp Aslan, former Public Security Branch Directorate deputy police chief Oben Özay, Chief Inspector Ercan Karagöz and police officer Serdar Coşkun, "incompatible with their financial profile".

In the prepared indictment, Bora Kaplan's statements, telephone records and financial profiles were also included as evidence.

In the indictment, which demanded that the defendants Aslan and Özay be punished with up to 5 years of imprisonment and a fine of up to 10 million lira for the crime of "violating the law on declaration of assets", a 12-year prison sentence was also requested for Aslan for the crime of "bribery". In the indictment, it was requested that both police chiefs be "banned from public service for life".

It was stated that an investigation was also carried out against the defendants for the allegation of "laundering assets arising from crime", and in this context, "a request was made for the seizure of their assets".