Statute of limitations request for fugitive prosecutors in FETO conspiracy cases

There have been developments regarding fugitive prosecutors Zekeriya Öz, Cihan Kansız and Mehmet Yüzgeç, who are at the center of the conspiracy cases set up by FETO with the support of the government of the period. The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court of Appeals requested the dismissal of the cases in which three fugitive prosecutors were tried, on the grounds of statute of limitations.

In the announced opinion, the defendant Mehmet Yüzgeç was accused of not conducting an effective investigation regarding the leakage of Mehmet Seyfi Oktay's wiretaps to the media, and the defendant Cihan Kansız was accused of giving instructions not to record the secret meeting of Naci Şerifi Zindaşti, who was detained in Maltepe Closed Prison in 2009, with FETO member Metin Topuz, who was working at the US Consulate General in Istanbul, on behalf of the Drug Enforcement Department of the US Department of Justice. He requested the dismissal of the public lawsuits on the grounds that the 8-year statute of limitations had expired.

Officers and lawyers who were the targets in the conspiracy case reacted to the opinion. Retired military judge Ahmet Zeki Üçok said, "The upper limit of the crime of bribery is 12 years. The accused person was a public prosecutor at the time of the crime, and the law at that time also regulates the taking of bribes by a judicial officer as an aggravating reason. In this case, the statute of limitations for the main case of the crime of bribery is 15 years, not 8 years."

Reminding that these people were among the people who created the environment for the coup attempt, retired Admiral Yankı Bağcıoğlu said, "It is unacceptable that these people, who created great weakness in both the army and national security, are exempt from their responsibilities in this way."