Turkish Workers' Party (TİP) Istanbul Deputy Ahmet Şık, in his post on his social media account, listed the allegations against the Minister of Justice Akın Gürlek and asked 9 questions.
Şık wrote:
"Akın Gürlek, who made great efforts in trying to eliminate the "enemies" of the political power, from Selahattin Demirtaş to Ekrem İmamoğlu, with the stick of the judiciary, was appointed as the Minister of Justice in February 2026. Gürlek made a series of moves to improve his image, which emerged due to his role and duty in political cases during his prosecutorial period. Gürlek, whose appointment to the Ministry of Justice caused a political/social polarization, became the subject of discussion, especially the land registry records regarding his assets. After the incident (Gürlek made classic defenses on this issue, such as defamation without evidence, that property declarations were made in accordance with the legislation, that a legal process would be initiated, and that he was targeted due to his judicial duty), he accelerated his image renewal works through the construction of institutional political legitimacy.
The most visible image investment was the unsolved murders, most of which were non-political. Gürlek, who had a unit established within the Ministry, regularly explains that hundreds of old files are scanned and dozens of cases are clarified. The most important file among these was the Gülistan Doku investigation. However, the author of the current stage of the Doku investigation was not Gürlek, but Tunceli Chief Public Prosecutor Ebru Cansu. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Chief Public Prosecutor Ebru Cansu profited from her efforts in shedding light on Doku's death. Investigation/prosecution processes initiated on issues such as drugs and organized crime, betting, luxury life-black money scenes on social media, digital crime and disinformation were all announced by Gürlek.
The image of Gürlek as a "hard-working" and "fair" Minister of Justice is presented to us through traditional media and social media tools. Thus, Gürlek tried/is trying to gain a new audience while creating visibility for his own base. Akın Gürlek, against whom various allegations were made regarding the fund robbery that locked Türkiye's agenda, took the stage as the person who made the statements about the ongoing investigation. He tries to soften the shadow cast on Gürlek with the image of a minister of justice who continues the fund robbery investigation with determination despite the allegations against him. For this study, both pro-government traditional media and social media troll accounts are used.
The troll mechanism on social media was made more organized with a network established by the Directorate of Communications during the period directed by Fahrettin Altun. Furkan Torlak, who was a member of the Directorate of Communications during the Altun period, carried the experience he gained there to the Ministry of Justice and became indispensable for Akın Gürlek. Torlak established a system that included the "famous", "many-follower" troll accounts of the most populous social media application Akın Gürlek's statements, etc. are transmitted through the network established through communication with the WhatsApp application over a phone line, and there is no problem with this. However, information, documents, photographs and images that violate the rights of publicly known names or suspects related to some investigations that attract attention, as well as unverified gossip news, are also served through this system. There are some examples in the images below.
The system first started to be operated through Tamar Tanrıyar, who targeted CHP municipalities and some names during the chairmanship of Özgür Özel. However, with the investigation opened regarding Tanrıyar, the method was changed and this new system was put into effect.
After this long introduction, let's move on to our questions to Minister of Justice Akın Gürlek:
1-) Is there a person like Mehmet Kap working in the Ministry of Justice?
2-) Is the name Mehmet Kap real or was a fake identity created?
3-) Is Furkan Torlak the person who communicated with the troll account holders and media members included in the established system, via WhatsApp on the phone number +905070317XXX, under the name Mehmet Kap, to direct the public?
4-) Is the phone number +905070317XXX registered in the name of a Syrian national?
5-) Do the signal base recordings of the phone number +905070317XXX and the personal phones used by Furkan Torlak coincide with the same locations?
6-) Will a technical examination be conducted to determine where the phones in question give signals, which base stations they connect to, and whether these records match Furkan Torlak's movements?
7-) Are information, documents, photographs, images violating the suspect's rights regarding the investigations carried out to the people involved in the troll and media network with whom they are in contact, as well as collective template posts allegedly prepared for the purpose of protecting and advertising Akın Gürlek, and core data regarding the disinformation activities spread by the network, being served?
8-) Will you take an initiative to reveal the structure behind Mehmet Kap's identity by initiating an investigation into phone calls, messaging, account login records, IP information, base station data and social media activities?
9-) Do you, the Minister of Justice, have any information about these illegal acts that violate the suspect's rights?
The new indictment against former Habertürk TV Editor-in-Chief Mehmet Akif Ersoy and 7 others on charges of "qualified sexual assault" and "establishing a criminal organization" was accepted by the Istanbul 19th High Criminal Court, and in the indictment accepted by the court, unlike the first rejected indictment, the names of the Ministry of Justice Press Counselor Furkan Torlak and former Head of Religious Affairs Mehmet Görmez, which were mentioned in the suspect and witness statements but did not contain criminal charges, were removed.
On the other hand, NEW Party leader Özgür Özel pointed to Furkan Torlak, who was also mentioned in drug operations, and claimed that an unofficial structure was created near the Ministry of Justice. Özel said the following about Torlak without naming him:
"Another person has appeared in these squads, friends. He is someone whose name was mentioned in the drug investigation in Istanbul conducted by Akın Gürlek himself. Someone whose name is mentioned in every statement. Someone who was rushed into prison. Then, sir, suddenly the allegations were spoken and written. He is someone who would have been arrested if even 1 percent of these allegations were true, but he was not. He is the head of a job and structure in the Directorate of Communications that is supposedly responsible for disinformation. The Directorate of Communications was cut off and thrown out in a hurry, saying 'there was a drug operation'.
Do you know what happened? They opened an unauthorized, supposedly unofficial room next to the Ministry of Justice, those who went there tell. They put this there. From there he works as an honor executioner on behalf of the Ministry of Justice. Do you know what he's doing? He wrote a text, I said, 'I'll take it out and read it', but the consultant said, 'Don't do it, sir, it won't happen.' 'Do not include these in the minutes of this parliament,' he said. So and so person... look, the person is accused of something else. That person's mobile phone was taken. Look, we are 1 million percent sure that it is a lie, but... these shameful messages were sent to so-and-so from her mobile phone and are being served to the press for your information. There is a phone entrusted to the state. It is not the person's fault, but even if he is, that phone is entrusted to the state. That phone falls into someone's hands. These are spread from the next room of the Minister of Justice to act as an executioner of dignity, so that the person's resistance will be broken and his relations with his wife will be broken... Without even hiding the name of the person in question... How much of the press is doing this? I swear, most of the people living here don't do it, thank God. But there is Akit, for example, Akit newspaper. He takes it as he gets it and sticks it. He pastes it as soon as he takes it. Or, those whose names have been revealed in various disgraceful records in America have television and newspapers. For example, they condescend to almost a quarter or forty percent of it, but they cannot write all of it. "Someone like that came with the Minister of Justice and he gave it to him and said 'sit down and write'."
Furkan Torlak, whose name was mentioned in the confessional statements in the drug file of former Habertürk Editor-in-Chief Mehmet Akif Ersoy, was appointed as Akın Gürlek's press advisor. Torlak was forced to resign from his position at the Directorate of Communications when his name was mentioned in the investigation.
