Turkish gag order hits arms-to-Syria trial
A Turkish court has issued a secrecy order for the proceedings of the trial of former officials accused of intercepting arms which were being transferred in 2014 from the country to the militants fighting the Syrian government.
Suleyman Bagriyanik, the former chief public prosecutor for the Adana region in southern Turkey, prosecutors Ozcan Sisman, Aziz Takci, and Ahmet Karaca, as well as Adana’s previous provincial gendarmerie commander Ozkan Cokay, were allegedly involved in searching Turkish Intelligence Service (MIT) trucks engaged in transporting the weapons to the foreign-backed militants. Local security forces found the trucks were taking not only a consignment of arms but also MIT personnel.
The five went on trial in the capital, Ankara, on Thursday, but the court was swift to subject the session to the gag order.
The former senior law enforcement authorities were accused last year of “attempting to overthrow the Turkish government by using force and violence or attempts to destroy the government’s function totally or partly,” and “getting intelligence over the politics and security of the state.”
Turkish opposition daily Cumhuriyet posted a video on its website on May 29, purportedly showing trucks belonging to the Turkish intelligence agency carrying weapons to the Takfiri terrorists operating in Syria.
Back in July, the office of the chief public prosecutor in Turkey’s southern province of Tarsus sought life imprisonment terms for the former officials.
The center-left paper integrated videos in a June report, implicating the MIT in ensuring safe passage into Syria for the terrorists of the notorious Takfiri group of Daesh, which is fighting both the Syrian government and the violence-ravaged country’s people.
The footage showed drivers admitting that they were “doing their duty to the state” by helping the militants bypass the territory near the heavily-defended Kurdish town of Kobani in Syria.
Syria has been struggling with an implacable militancy since March 2011. The US and its regional allies - especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey - have been widely accused of supporting the militants operating inside Syria.
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