ÇEV Planned to Defame Gülen Movement, Document Shows
The Contemporary Education Foundation (ÇEV), whose members were recently detained as part of an ongoing investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine organization charged with plotting to overthrow the government, planned to frame members of the faith-based Gülen movement for the shooting of an outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) member, a document included in the third Ergenekon indictment has shown.
An e-mail sent to ÇEV Chairwoman Gülseven Yaşer, one of the suspects in the third indictment, found on the computer of Mustafa Hüseyin Buzoğlu, Yaşer's lawyer, from two allegedly pro-PKK students receiving scholarships from ÇEV reveals the foundation's plans for a smear campaign against members of the Gülen movement. In the e-mail, the students said Yaşer once told one of them, “What a scandal it could be if we shot you in your leg and then say members of the Gülen movement did it?” They also said Yaşer offered bribes to people to urge them to give false testimony in a case against renowned Turkish-Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. “You gave $2,000 to Eyüp and forced him to sign a blank document. You gave $500 to his mother and made her sign another blank paper. We protected your honor,” they wrote. They also accused Yaşer of transferring donations made to the foundation to her own accounts.
“Otherwise, how can you buy villas in Zekeriyaköy [an area of İstanbul] or take trips around the world? I wonder if all that was thanks to the money the Buffet Foundation donated to ÇEV but you used,” they allege. They said they gave the scholarship of $20,000, which had been given to specifically them by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomeos, to Yaşer. The students said Yaşer used them for “serving for the republic and Kemalism” and made a career and gained publicity making use of these concepts. In the e-mail, Yaşer was also accused of laying the blame for corrupt practices she was involved in on members of the Gülen movement.
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