A forensic investigation has revealed that a piece of digital evidence used in multiple terrorism cases in Turkey that have put 40 people behind bars did not include the content cited in the indictments.
“I have examined whether the correspondence and images included in the indictment have been tampered with, but messaging content cited in the indictment was not able to be detected,” news website Duvar cited the independent forensic expert as telling an Istanbul court upon request of their services. “There has been no addition to or subtraction from the data in question, based on timeline and cohesion analyses ran on the digital images.”
Law enforcement makes copies of phones, computers and other devices to continue investigations without the physical device present, called an “image”.
The image in question was first used to convict Nuriye Gülmen to 10 years in prison for terrorism offences. Lawyers of Gülmen, an academic who was dismissed by emergency decree in the post-coup crackdown of 2016, had appealed to have the evidence examined, but the Ankara court denied the appeal.
The same image resurfaced in an Istanbul case, whose judge sustained the appeal for examination. Before the independent analysis, the piece of evidence was first analysed by the official Forensic Institute, which also failed to detect any terrorist correspondence.
Further inspection revealed that the report on the image was written one day before the so-called evidence was collected by police.
“We had argued that the ‘terrorist correspondence’ cited in the indictment had been placed there after the fact, that it was faked, but it turns out it never existed,” lawyer Oğuzhan Topalkara said. “It has come out that this piece of digital evidence was nothing but a series of nondescript police reports. All convictions based on it must be overturned, continuing cases should end in acquittals, and those awaiting trial in prison must be released. The state must take steps to alleviate the grievance.”
Among those affected by the non-existent piece of evidence were Pelin Akbaş Yeşil, a teacher from the earthquake-hit Hatay province who was dismissed from the civil service, and Sinan Bin, a lawyer whose licence was revoked over the trial he faced.
