In order to establish clearly where, when, how, and by whom Mehmet Çetin was killed, we shall try to list below the evidence we have been able to identify and the matters that need to be clarified:
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Because Mehmet Çetin had an assault vest and night-vision goggles on him, we have stated that, when the soldiers arrived by helicopter at around 03:00, he had probably, together with the other bodyguards, taken his long-barrelled weapon and equipment from the vehicles. On this point, however, there are suspicious operations. Namely: in a record kept at 12:10 on 16 July 2016, the belongings found on Mehmet Çetin are listed (The record listing the materials found on Mehmet Çetin (16.07.2016, 12:10)).
Here there is no magazine or cartridge. As military equipment there is only a pair of night-vision goggles, a torch and a knife. Earlier, in the record kept when Mehmet Çetin was brought to the Ahu hospital at around 05:30, there are — added at the end of the list — 4 magazines and 115 cartridges (Mehmet Çetin's patient-belongings handover record (16.07.2016, 05:30, private Ahu Hospital)).
It is understood that these last materials were added to the list afterwards by someone else — whether from their not being in the record in Figure 6.1, kept in digital format 7 hours later the same day; or from the way the letters are written (the letters ş, j, a, ö); or from the different writing format used (adet, Adt, ad.). What is interesting is that, on 4 August 2016, on the prosecutor's instruction, 4 magazines and 115 cartridges belonging to the M-16 weapon found on Police Officer Mehmet Çetin were sent to be added to the case file (The prosecutor's letter concerning the sending of the M-16 magazines and cartridges found on Mehmet Çetin to the case file (04.08.2016)). The question now comes to mind: "Were those magazines and cartridges not on Mehmet Çetin, and only added on 4 August?" It does not end there: the Presidential Protection Department writes to the Muğla Special Operations department, saying, just in case, take those magazines and cartridges from the Muğla prosecutor's office and keep them yourselves (The Presidential Protection Department's request to keep the magazines and cartridges in question (addressed to the Muğla Special Operations department)). Why, one wonders, do the bodyguards attach such importance to these magazines and cartridges? If those magazines do not belong to Mehmet Çetin, to whom do they belong? To the teammate beside him? Let us also note this in passing: M-16 rifle magazines hold 30 rounds, so 4 magazines should hold 120 rounds in total. Since there are 115 rounds here, 5 have probably been fired. Who fired at whom — has the court investigated it, do you think?
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In the autopsy footage and the clothing examination, it appears that Mehmet Çetin's left shoe and left sock are missing. Where are these, and why are they missing?
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Again, in the autopsy footage, on the quilt on which Mehmet Çetin was carried, there appear soil residue, pine needles and a piece of branch. This too indicates that Mehmet Çetin may have been shot on a bare-earth surface with trees around it. The rear of 1782, which İrfan Paksoy speaks of, is a concrete surface. The place where Mehmet Çetin's blood trace is is a bare-earth surface.
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The forensic examination report says that Mehmet Çetin had ecchymoses associated with fractures below and above the knee (in the thigh and shin bones). These ecchymoses (bruises) can also be seen in the external post-mortem examination footage. The dubious autopsy report, too, says that there were fractures in the left leg. If there really were fractures, then by investigating how the thigh and shin bones — among the strongest bones in the body — were broken, and whether or not Mehmet Çetin fell from a height, one could gain a further idea of how Mehmet Çetin may have been killed. When one also takes into account the heavy dust marks on both legs of his trousers, particularly at the knees, it comes to mind that he may have been shot while on the upper-floor balcony at the rear of villa 1751 and, falling from the balcony, broken his leg.
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It does not appear possible that the very wide wounds on Mehmet Çetin's lower back and right leg were made by the soldiers' weapons firing 5.56 mm bullets. What weapon these wide wounds may have been made with, and — since the soldiers had no such weapon — whether the bodyguards had one, should be investigated.
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All the materials the bodyguards reported missing that night (weapon, magazine, phone) were found afterwards; only the Aselsan 4715 radios belonging to Burak Güzel and Mehmet Çetin could not be found. True, in the record kept on 18 July, which includes the missing-belongings list, Burak Güzel has no missing item (The bodyguards' joint record dated 18.07.2016). However, in his 16 July statement Burak Güzel said he could not find his radioSee Burak Güzel's statement of 16 July 2016 (The statements of seven presidential bodyguards dated 16.07.2016).. The soldiers left the materials they took from the bodyguards at the hotel; indeed, the other bodyguards' seized materials were later found. The few items they took with them into the terrain they also left in places where they could later be found, and these materials were found by the searching security forces too. Despite this, Burak Güzel says his radio could not be found. As for Mehmet Çetin, since he was killed, his radio ought normally to have been where he was. The bodyguard named Can Gülsever said in his statement that his missing phone was found in the sea and brought to him. In a place where even a mobile phone said to have been thrown into the sea could be found, how the radio of someone shot at the hotel went missing is a question mark. Moreover, the Aselsan 4715 radios have a Caller ID feature (which shows/records the caller) and a Call Log feature (which records the last 10 calls) (Brochure for the Aselsan 4715 radio device). This too brings to mind a scenario such as: "someone made a radio call to lure Mehmet Çetin into an ambush before killing him, and the radios were made to disappear so that this would not come to light."
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While we are on the subject of the missing radio, the record kept on 18 July also contains some interesting missing materials:
- 4 Escape CBRN gas masks belonging to Serhat Karakuş
- 2 Columbia shirts and trousers belonging to Can Gülsever
Allegations had been raised that, before the soldiers arrived, another team wearing gas masks had come. The Escape CBRN-type gas masks were later found at Dalaman Airport, and on them were found the fingerprints of the bodyguards Serhat Karakuş, Hamza Eroğlu and Metin Yılmaz, and of 4 police officers on duty at Dalaman Airport. The gas masks, moreover, are of the escape-and-survival type, not the type that could be put on during an operation. Why the bodyguards protecting a president on holiday carried these masks with them is also a question mark.
Sabri Kesen, one of the journalists who attended the press statement the President gave that night, said in his statement to the Grand National Assembly (TBMM) coup-inquiry commission at Marmaris on 21.12.2016 that, while waiting in front of the villa where the President was staying, the bodyguards spoke of an authority to use chemical weapons for defensive purposes. The bodyguards — prepared enough (!) to contemplate, if there were an attack on the President while on holiday, using a chemical weapon in a place with hundreds of tourists, and to bring gas masks with them so as not to be affected by the chemical weapon — for some reason could not think (?!) to set up the portable security-camera system that is standard practice in VIP protection wherever the principal stays; and so we cannot see from security-camera footage by whom, where, and when Mehmet Çetin was shot. As luck would have it, among the Turban Hotel's own security cameras, precisely the ones that showed the hotel's interior turned out to have dirty lenses and faulty settings. Only the ones showing the non-critical views were working properly. On top of that, the bodyguards, for some reason, also smashed the surrounding lamps before the soldiers arrived. Even without a security camera to prove how the incident happened, perhaps one of the tourists would have wanted to film it; but because the lamps were not lit, nothing can be made out in the dark. And so we are trying to reach Mehmet Çetin's killers through the other evidence.
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Can Gülsever, too, said that the 2 Columbia shirts and trousers issued to them as kit had gone missing. When we look at his statement, unlike the others he says that when the helicopters came he was in villa 1758. He went to his colleagues laterMarmaris Robbery Trial, Reasoned Judgment: The Reasoned Judgment in the Marmaris Robbery trial, p. 12.. Villa 1758 must be close to 1751, where Mehmet Çetin's blood trace was found. Did his shirt and trousers become bloodstained before he went to his colleagues? Is that why they went missing? And not one shirt but two. In his statement he saysThe statements of thirteen presidential bodyguards dated 27 and 28.07.2016: Statements given by thirteen presidential bodyguards on 27 and 28 July 2016.: "One of the soldiers took my iPhone 5 mobile phone from my trousers and, it seems, threw it into the sea. My phone later came out of the sea. They tore my Columbia trousers and shirt." "The shirt I was wearing was not returned to me. I do not remember how my shirt was removed from me." (No comment.) Moreover, whereas the other bodyguards say they found Mehmet Çetin in front of the balcony of 1782, Can Gülsever, who for some reason came late, says, "when I came, Mehmet Çetin was in the villa, on the bed."
In fact, the following questions could have been put to Can Gülsever: "Why might the soldier who took your phone have thrown it into the sea? Why did he take it, why would he throw it? The radio in the pocket of the dead man cannot be found — how, then, was your phone found in the whole vast sea? Or were messages one did not want to come to light exchanged on the phone, and was it for that reason dipped into the sea and taken out again? Let us grant that your shirt was thin and the soldiers tore it — how did they tear your trousers? Mehmet Çetin's trousers look quite thick and sturdy; indeed, it was said that he was shot in the left knee, that a single bullet broke his thigh, shin and calf bones all three at once, and yet the trousers were not pierced; how were your trousers torn? Let us grant that they somehow tore those too — did you then change your clothes and they tore them again? For you did state two shirts and your trousers as missing (!?)"
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According to the criminalistic examination report of Mehmet Çetin's clothing, it is understood that he was shot in the back. Whereas the other bodyguards who stated in their statements where Mehmet Çetin was shot that night (Murat Bayrak, Mustafa Akça, Uğur Göküz, Kerem Talip Sayın, Neşet Altuntaş, Metin Yılmaz) say he had two wounds to the chest and one to the leg, only İrfan Paksoy says he was wounded in the back, beneath the rib cage and in the leg. Apart from the bodyguards, the person who called the 112 emergency service for Mehmet Çetin at 04:38 and 04:46 from the telephone number 05383696234The numbers that called the 112 emergency service for Mehmet Çetin (from the Ambulance Tracking System records): The Numbers That Called the 112 Emergency Service for Mehmet Çetin and Nedip Cengiz Eker (taken from the Ambulance Tracking System records). and said his name was Özkan Özel and that he was not a police officer says, like İrfan Paksoy, that Mehmet Çetin was shot in the back, the chest and the leg. No statement is taken from this person, and he is not among those on duty at the Turban Hotel that night or those who, though not on duty, were at the hotel (Lists of the personnel on duty at, and present at, the Turban Hotel on the night of 15 July). At the end of the conversation Özkan Özel (B) had with the 112 operator (A) at 04:38, a police officer (C) begins to speak: "C — I do not know who I am speaking with at the moment, [I am a] police officer, INAUDIBLE, at the moment we have a colleague about to die in the line of duty…". Moreover, in his statement to the prosecutor the head of the protection detail, Murat Bayrak, said, "A teammate whose name I do not recall at the moment told me that a 112 staff member said on the phone, 'They are not letting us leave here,'" and by this statement he confirmed that the bodyguards were there while the phone conversation with 112 was taking place. That someone who says he is not a police officer speaks on the phone while police officers (bodyguards) are there; that, although (in line 5 of the conversation transcript) he says he himself is calling because the police officers are busy with others, a police officer later joins the conversation; that he knows how many wounded there are; that he says there are four or five wounded; that he directs the ambulance to come by the coast road… when all of these are assessed together, these phone calls said to have been made by a person named Özkan Özel look like something that could be done by someone self-assured, competent and familiar with the incident — that is, by one of the bodyguards there.
The bodyguard named Eda Kol Yüksel said, in the Robbery trial heard at the Muğla 2nd Assize Court, that it was she who reached the ambulance for Mehmet Çetin through a civilian (Marmaris Robbery Trial, Reasoned Judgment p. 17Marmaris Robbery Trial, Reasoned Judgment: The Reasoned Judgment in the Marmaris Robbery trial). The police officer who joined in at the end of the 04:38 conversation of the person who said above that he was "Özkan Özel" may be Eda Kol Yüksel. While Eda Kol Yüksel — or whichever bodyguard it was who said he or she was that police officer — was there, that Özkan Özel, who says he is not a police officer, spoke with 112 about Mehmet Çetin in her place is not, in the fashionable phrase, consistent with "the ordinary course of life." Indeed, as Özkan Özel says, that the other police officers were dealing with others while there was someone as gravely wounded as Mehmet Çetin is likewise contrary to the ordinary course of life. This too brings to mind that "one of the bodyguards may have given the name Özkan Özel while speaking." As is known, the bodyguards said they were 25 and opened 25 signature spaces in the record they kept, but only 23 people signed, and of those who signed, 22 gave statements — Bülent Yalçın did not. Who the remaining 2 bodyguards are is also unknown. They may be bodyguards who did not want it to come out that they were mixed up in the incident. It would have been expected that the court investigate this too.
On the other hand, when we examine İrfan Paksoy's statement (İrfan Paksoy's complainant statement dated 16.07.2016) from this angle, he recounts, in summary, that when he and Mehmet Çetin went to the rear of 1782 they came upon soldiers and the soldiers fired at Mehmet Çetin; that the soldiers then went to their colleagues in 1782; that when the soldiers left there, he went to the place where he had last seen Mehmet Çetin — that is, to the rear of villa 1782 — and could not find him there; that he then went to his colleagues in 1782; and that together with them he found Mehmet Çetin in front of the balcony of 1782. In this statement, in which the bodyguards' being taken into custody and being made to crawl and taken over to the Relax pool and the Limon Café — present in all the other bodyguards' and the soldiers' statements — does not appear, what İrfan Paksoy did while the other bodyguards were being apprehended is unknown.
If Mehmet Çetin was shot in the back, and if this is said only by İrfan Paksoy — who says he witnessed Mehmet Çetin's death — and by the person who called 112 to call an ambulance for Mehmet Çetin and said his name was Özkan Özel, and if this person is in fact one of the bodyguards as we explained above, then İrfan Paksoy and Özkan Özel may be the same person.
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In the record they kept on 18 July, the bodyguards recorded that 3 of their pistols were missing:
- Sig Sauer, serial no. AM 164683 (belonging to Bilgehan Efe)
- Glock, serial no. RZV 191 (belonging to Hamza Eroğlu)
- Glock, serial no. RVZ 232 (belonging to Metin Yılmaz)
Of these, RVZ 232 was found in the terrain on 17 July 2016. RZV 191 and AM 164683 were found on 19 September in the garden of the Palas Hotel. Why these weapons could not be found for two months, and how it is that during these two months the weapons were spotless, without even dust on them, were not investigated (The Crime-Scene Investigation Report (Section 18) concerning the finding of the bodyguards' missing pistols in the garden of the Palas Hotel on 16.09.2016).
In the end, the 3 pistols said to have gone missing are found.
In addition, on the morning of 16 July, on the soldiers' route of passage, materials plainly belonging to the bodyguards are found inside an extra-large rubbish bag. The soldiers were in no position to put the materials they took from the bodyguards into a rubbish bag; at that moment they were under fire from the special-operations police. From this bag, too, a Sig Sauer pistol with serial no. AM 164714 is found. The 3 missing pistols had been found. This is a fourth. It was not reported missing, but belongs to one of the bodyguards. Afterwards this pistol too is requested by the Presidential Protection Department (The Handover-and-Receipt Record concerning the delivery of the Sig Sauer pistol with serial number AM 164714 and the Glock pistol with serial number RVZ 232 to the Protection Department (07.11.2016)). Why was this pistol — which looks as though the soldiers took it from the bodyguards — not recorded as missing? To whom does it belong? Given that there are, on Mehmet Çetin's body and clothing, bullet holes probably made by a 9 mm pistol, these pistols too need to be examined criminalistically.