PKK Played A Role in Gülen Case

The terrorist organization, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), reportedly played a role in the case of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, accused of forming a gang against the State. The PKK was claimed to have been involved in the preparation of cassettes which were shown as evidence in the case and in the direction of witnesses.

Gülen's lawyers presented the court with a video cassette of a program broadcast on Isik TV at the case hearing in the Ankara State Security Court (DGM) on Monday. The program included a phone conversation between Contemporary Education Foundation Chairman Gulseren Yaser and one of her friends. Students, sympathetic to the PKK, were offered money and jobs to testify against Gülen. The PKK members' scholarships were revoked, but they were given promises that they would start receiving scholarships once again if they edited the film in a distorted way.

Gülen's lawyers said at the hearing that the PKK had brought the cassettes to the country's agenda in order to eliminate the Ocalan death penalty issue from the agenda. The lawyers said that some PKK supporters were conducting activities in the name of the Civil Society Institutions Union and that they had links within the country.

The lawyers claimed that the union had made contacts with some witnesses in the Gülen case and had provided them with money and jobs in order to testify against Gülen. They also claimed that Prosecutor Nuh Mete Yuksel had extended the case on purpose by not presenting all the evidence at once. The court has suspended the case until July 1, 2002. 2002-08-05 00:00:00