Main opposition Republican People’s Party Deputy Chairman Aykut Erdoğdu said on Monday that a recent parliamentary commission draft report released by its chairman from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) aims to denigrate innocent people and avoids investigations into people from AKP circles who were involved in a failed coup last summer.
At a press conference in Ankara on Monday, Erdoğdu said the draft report released by AKP deputy Reşat Petek on Friday hides details about the AKP’s responsibilities in the failed coup and portrays it as a natural disaster that cannot be prevented.
“Did the chief of general staff and MİT (National Intelligence Organization) undersecretary hide prior information about the coup from the president and prime minister? If they did, why are they still on the job? Was the coup attempt known by the government beforehand? Were those citizens who died on the night of the coup massacred in a staged coup? Why were necessary precautions not taken despite the fact that MİT knew about the coup at noon on July 15? Who are those in the political part of the coup? Who would have been president if the coup had been successful?” Erdoğdu asked during the press conference.
The chairman of Turkey’s parliamentary Coup Investigation Commission on Friday unveiled a draft report prepared by the commission about the failed coup attempt on July 15 that fell short of casting any light on the putsch and repeated the narrative of the AKP government.
The 630-page-long report was prepared in four months, 15 days. The Coup Investigation Commission has attracted widespread criticism for not hearing key figures such as Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar and MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan.
The report accuses the faith-based Gülen movement of masterminding the July 15 coup attempt, a claim made by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan while the coup attempt was still unfolding. However, the report bases its this accusation on the testimonies of some coup suspects such as Col. Levent Türkkan, who held Gülen followers responsible for the coup attempt in his first testimony but admitted at a court hearing earlier this week that his first testimony was false because he gave it under torture.
Türkkan, aide-de-camp of Chief of General Staff Gen. Akar, is among 221 suspects accused of being ringleaders of the failed coup attempt on July 15 whose trial began at an Ankara court on Monday.
“I didn’t make a truthful statement [in that testimony]. I was totally destroyed. I was receiving IV fluids. They X-rayed my brain. I didn’t make a single truthful statement,” Türkkan said during a court hearing on Tuesday.
Petek, who spoke at a news conference to release the draft report, said the commission has so far been unable to obtain any answers from Gen. Akar related to the coup attempt. Akar was taken hostage by the coup plotters on the night of July 15 and was released on July 16 when the coup attempt was suppressed.
The commission’s report admits that there was an intelligence failure that prevented authorities from taking measures to prevent the coup attempt, which claimed the lives of more than 240 people and injured a thousand others, from being staged.
Despite the apparent failure of the Turkish intelligence authorities to gather intelligence about the coup plans, no intelligence official has resigned or been fired by the government.