Newly revealed security camera footage confirms the timing in the testimony of a major, O.K. who claims he notified Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) on July 15, the day of a failed coup, about the impending coup attempt.
“At 14:30 I told two persons that ‘a helicopter will take [MİT Undersecretary] Hakan Fidan. I do not know what the other helicopters will do.’ They asked me what that could mean. I told them this could be a big activity, even a coup attempt,” O.K. said in his testimony to a prosecutor on Aug. 11, 2016. O.K. added that MİT sent him back to his unit after putting a wire on him.
O.K. is seen three times on the security camera footage of the Army Aviation Command at around 13:42 on July 15, which confirms what he said in his testimony about the time he left the command to go to MİT.
In the second image, O.K. appears near the main entrance of the Army Aviation Command where he is seen talking on the phone at 21:51. In his testimony, he said he had a phone call with an MİT official with the code name “Pastacı” at around 22:00.
In the third image, O.K. is seen walking to the main entrance of the Army Aviation Command, at 21:52.
In his testimony, O.K. also said he remembers very well that he used the phrase “There will be a coup” to MİT officials.
Following the disclosure of O.K.’s testimony, a debate erupted as to whether the Turkish authorities failed to take the necessary measures to prevent the coup attempt, which claimed the lives of at least 240 people and injured a thousand others, although they had time to take action to prevent it from being staged.
Although O.K. says in this testimony that he notified MİT about coup preparations in the military, Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, who on Monday submitted an eight-page-long statement to a parliamentary commission investigating the July 15 coup attempt, said the major did not give any tipoff about the attempt but said an attack would be staged on MİT targeting its undersecretary, Fidan.