Ahmet Kekeç, a columnist from the pro-government Star daily, has claimed exiled former editor-in-chief of the Cumhuriyet daily Can Dündar will be brought to Turkey by means of a secret service operation in the same way outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan was returned to Turkey.
Dündar had been arrested and jailed for 92 days along with colleague Erdem Gül from Cumhuriyet for publishing a story on Turkish intelligence trucks carrying hidden weapons bound for Syria in early 2014.
They were arrested on Nov. 26, 2015 and released on Feb. 26, 2016 following a Constitutional Court decision. Shortly after his release and an armed attack against him, Dündar quit his position as editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet and left Turkey as scores of other journalists under pressure have done.
He lives in Germany now. “The case of Can Dündar is no longer judicial. It is a matter of intelligence. Just as Öcalan was arrested and brought to Turkey, Dündar will be brought in a secret service operation to the country which he describes as a hell, and he will be tried here,” wrote Kekeç in his column on Monday.
Öcalan was captured in Kenya on Feb. 15, 1999 and brought to Turkey in an operation by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT).