Fethullah Gülen: None of the Accusations is Accurate
Gülen said: "The people reaching the verdict know better; however, the public conscience, which has been wounded by the opening of the case and whose wound has been deepened by being left hanging, will only be satisfied with an acquittal to cure its wound." Bringing to mind the rule of "innocent until proven guilty," Gülen stated that he believed the lawyers' appeal of the postponement of the case would be examined by the DGM judges and that a decision would be reached that would eventually reflect justice.
In the United States for treatment, Gülen issued a statement regarding a verdict issued by the DGM No. 2 on March 10, 2003. Noting that during the trial phase he had not issued any statement that would have affected public opinion or the court, Gülen said that he only reserved his legal rights via his lawyers. He declared: "Before the trial, I rejected -- I am not exaggerating at all -- the wish of hundreds and thousands of people, including close friends, to visit. I refrained from agreeing to the wishes of my dear relatives, my close friends and my friends, whose voices, when I heard them, I believe, would have calmed my longing, fired by an absence from home. If you wish to give a name to this life, you can call it 'willful seclusion' or 'willful imprisonment.' Calling it 'willful exile' is the most accurate. Only those people who share the same feelings with me would understand how difficult and unbearable a life this is for a person who spent his 65 years of life among people. However, I have been enduring all this for the people of my nation. I said this is the irony of fate by the will of God, and I have tried to understand this irony. I accepted this phase as contemplation and as a reckoning for my sins. Since it is much desired -- and as my closest friends say, it is the expectation of Turkish and world public opinion -- I shall say it. I have never been a parasite to any person or institution or a person who lives off someone else. When I haven't had money or when my salary was insufficient, I've had loans and I've had meals as such. When I haven't had anyone to borrow some money from, I have preferred to stay hungry. In the institute of which I was director, I said that this was the lot of students, the lot of mortals. I haven't even touched its soap. I haven't taken any 'ulufe' [salary paid every three months to certain soldiers and officials] from anybody or any institution and have never expected any 'ulufe.' I haven't pleaded with anyone but God."
Gülen emphasized that he had tried to serve the existence of the nation and the country, the unity and integrity of the nation and the country, the today and the tomorrow of the nation and the country, more than other people who flatter themselves about their services carried out by state-given opportunities. Quoting Ziya Pasha's "One's mirror is one's work, regardless of what one says" remark, Gülen said: "Works that have been carried out are obvious. These are accomplished first by God's kindness and benevolence, and then through the efforts of my nation's extraordinarily sincere, self-sacrificing volunteers, dispersed all over the world in a way rarely seen in history, starting with education on different aspects of life, and they [the works] are obvious. Yet I haven't accomplished all of this by myself alone. Anyway, I have never claimed such a thing, which only befits Satan, and I never will. An attempt to carry out this work was made through consultations with the state and with prominent people within the state. You may be certain of this. As I have stated many times before, my role was only to use the credit given to me on their behalf regarding all this work, causing the face of this nation to be cleared, [a nation] walking towards its future by overcoming many obstacles and holding its head high.
"In a place where people who abuse opportunities afforded by the state -- where every cent of these opportunities consists of the efforts of the self-sacrificing people of our nation -- people who walk freely, people who are involved in all kinds of scandal, who are engaged in forgery or falsification, who are involved in cheating, it is expected that the final verdict in my case will be an acquittal before the public conscience. The people reaching the verdict know better; however, the public conscience -- wounded by the filing of the lawsuit, with a wound that is getting deeper by being left hanging for years -- would be satisfied and can only cure its wound with an acquittal."
Saying, "Yes, everybody knows that there are some people who are only interested in showing me as a guilty party, who are trying to do everything towards my sentencing," Gülen emphasized that these people did not know that services had been carried out and that their continuation was not related to him. Gülen stated that services accomplished are the fruit and the result of the awakenings of the feelings, thoughts and beliefs of a nation that had ruled the world for many centuries.
He said that to a person who believes he is living the final days of his life with many diseases, starting with heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, the final verdict of the case -- whether an acquittal or a sentencing -- was not important from his point of view. Gülen said: "But there remains the wounded public conscience, and its repair is necessary. Within the framework of existing laws, there is a so-called charge that could not be proven. Not granting an acquittal to such a charge is against the rule of 'innocent until proven guilty.' In this regard, I believe that the appeal lodged by my lawyers will be examined very carefully by the panel of judges in the court, and I hope that there will be a verdict that will eventually reflect justice." 2003-03-17 18:22:32
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