At the hearing held at the Istanbul 33rd High Criminal Court, in the hall opposite the Marmara Closed Penal Institution, the unarrested defendant Semih Bilgin, the driver of the fugitive defendant businessman Murat Gülibrahimoğlu, made his defense.
During the defense of the defendant Bilgin, the detained defendant Fatoş Pınar Türker, General Manager of IMM subsidiary Medya AŞ, fell ill. Medical teams intervened in Türker in the courtroom.
Defendant Bilgin, who continued his defense after a short break in the hearing, stated that he started working as Murat Gülibrahimoğlu's driver in 2015 and said, "First of all, there is an allegation that 4.5 million dollars was withdrawn in cash. I have never seen such an amount in my life, let alone withdrawing such money. However, there is some money that I have withdrawn from bank branches in Göktürk and Maslak at different times, with the instructions written by Adem Başer. This money is from Adem Başer." When I asked Bey what I should do, he told me to deliver it to Murat Bey." he said.
Defendant Bilgin, who said that he withdrew the money on the instructions of Adem Başer and gave it to Gülibrahimoğlu, said that regarding the money entered into his account, he paid his housing and vehicle expenses during the period he worked, and then the accounting department deposited this money to him.
Defendant Bilgin claimed that he was innocent and asked for his acquittal.
"I HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OR INTEREST IN THESE ISSUES"
The unarrested defendant, Adem Tuncay, Advertising Management Manager at Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, said that he started working in the municipality in 2006, long before the alleged structure.
Stating that he was appointed as the director in 2022 and that he continued his de facto duty until the date of his detention, Tuncay said, "During my time in prison, especially after the release of Hakan Karaköse, high-level people of the municipality who had never visited me before, people who introduced themselves as council members, and even one or two members of parliament, started to visit me personally. I met with one of them, and I wrote a petition and informed the prison administration that I did not want to meet with someone." he said.
Tuncay claimed that he was a civil servant and did not belong to any political party and made the following claims:
"There is even a situation like this. When a lady whose name I remember as Ülkü, whose surname I cannot remember now, and a lady who introduced herself as a council member visited me in prison after Karaköse's release, I asked whether Karaköse's statement had reached me or not, 'What could he possibly have said, he slandered.' After making some statements like this, he asked me in an irrelevant way whether I lived in the municipality's housing. Under the conditions of that day, this situation had little to do with the topic we were talking about. I did not perceive this as an ordinary question of curiosity. I perceived it as an implicit message that made me feel that my living space was known and my family order was known. In short, after the release of Hakan Karaköse, they tried to indirectly suggest and put pressure on me."
Stating that he applied to the prosecutor's office of his own free will, Tuncay said, "My reason for applying is as follows; I had the opportunity to think a lot about the situations I experienced during the prison period. As a result of my meetings with my lawyer and the new information I obtained about the file, I applied to the prosecutor's office with a petition and decided to tell what I knew. The prosecutor did not force me to give anyone's name in any way." he declared.
Stating that he applied to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality with a written petition to return to his duty after his release, Tuncay stated that he still has not been started to work today, and that many senior bureaucrats who were released from this case have been started to work, and he was given a response saying "It was not deemed appropriate because the legal process is still ongoing."
Tuncay said that his wife started working at IMM in 2008, and after 2019, after the new management, she started to experience serious difficulties and was dismissed from her job, where she had been working for about 13 years.
Stating that there are some allegations in the indictment that allegedly took place after the main tender, Tuncay said, "There are mentions of sub-tenders made by participation companies, side bids that are claimed to be collusive, companies that received the job, money being transferred to a system, and other transactions that are claimed to have taken place at later stages. In other words, if someone had a vulnerability in this system in the subsequent processes and took advantage of them, someone gained a benefit, or even if some other transactions were carried out as claimed in the indictment, I have nothing to do with these issues." "I have no knowledge or interest." made his defense.
"BOSS'S COMPANY" CLAIM
The public prosecutor asked, "How would the issue of invoices for work that was not done be like?" In response to the question, defendant Tuncay said that he was told that he had made complaints such as "money was transferred to the subsidiary company".
Tuncay, the public prosecutor said, "You are talking about turning a blind eye to places with high value regarding advertising places. You have a statement that Murat Ongun, through Kağan Sürmegöz, instructed the police not to download these areas and these advertisements in the later process." When he said, "It is true. It was happening in places where it was not possible to give advertising permission in accordance with the regulation. Some of these were already carried out under the name of ecrimisil file. From time to time, requests for removal of these would come from the police. Kaan Bey would make a decision to remove them or not to remove them. Or he would say 'We will discuss it through communication first.' "There were situations where they said and made me wait." he said.
Thereupon, the prosecutor said, "So, an order was being given to the police by Murat Ongun through Kağan Sürmegöz, regarding these places?" Tuncay asked the question, "Yes, in summary." he replied.
The public prosecutor said, "You have statements about Reklamist. You stated that Murat Ongun followed the affairs of this Reklamist through Kağan Sürmegöz. How was this follow-up done?" Defendant Tuncay answered the question: "This is related to Reklamist's work. Mr. Kağan has repeatedly told us that this is his boss company." he said.
The prosecutor asked, "What does he mean by the boss?" To the question, the defendant Tuncay said, "Mr. Murat. In other words, he used to address Mr. Murat as the boss from time to time. He has repeatedly said that he was called the 'boss company'. As I said, the work of this company was approached in a slightly different manner when the demands came." he said.
Tuncay, upon the public prosecutor's request to detail the issue of an agreement between Modyo and Reklamist, said the following:
"Modyo is actually an in-vehicle digital display tender made in 2015. It is a tender of approximately 20 years, and will end in 2035. There are some lines within the scope of Modyo's tender, and since they are the first tender, they are a little more valuable. There are also new lines that gradually emerged in the newly opened metro stations. We also made a tender for these places, but I do not want to say that all of them are worthless, there are also places with valuable locations. After 2020, Reklamist company would generally be interested in these digital-related parts and would take these works from the subcontractor, affiliate company. In the later processes, since Reklamist did not want to operate some of the non-valuable locations for reasons such as not being able to make enough profit, but since it had won the tender, the worthless parts were made to be leased to Modyo. I can say that Modyo was actually forced to do this.
The prosecutor asked: "Is the purpose here to multiply Reklamist's profits?" To the question, defendant Tuncay said, "Of course, it's the advertiser's." he replied.
Murat Ongun, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Medya AŞ, the detained defendant, said: "If Ekrem İmamoğlu is the leader of the organization, who made you a manager in the municipality where you have been working for 20 years and gave you lodging, you become a member of the organization. As the person who gave you your lodging and office. Currently, you are still living in the IMM lodging. Nobody is doing anything bad to you." The defendant Tuncay said, "Let me tell you that they do it very well, but don't say they don't do it now." he said.
Thereupon, Ongun said, "If they did, they would throw him out of the lodging." he said.
Defendant Tuncay said, "They are working, don't worry, they are working on that too. I am under constant pressure about the housing I live in. I did not mention this issue, but since you brought it up, I will bring it up. Moreover, this is not the housing of any manager of the municipality, it is the housing of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. So, I am not the only civil servant living here, there are many officials of the municipality living there." he said.
After the cross-examination was completed, the statement of Tuncay's lawyer was heard.
In addition, at the hearing, the defense of the unarrested defendant Eyüp Subaşı's wife Gülşah Subaşı and her sons Onur Buğra Subaşı and Songül Çar were also taken.
The hearing was postponed until the morning hours to continue listening to the statement of Tuncay's lawyer.
Meanwhile, with the defense of 6 undetained defendants being taken during the hearing, which lasted approximately 14 hours, the defense of a total of 108 undetained defendants in the case was completed.
