Two Journalists Face Prison Sentence over Report on 2015 Ankara Massacre

Alican Uludağ and Olcay Büyüktaş (Photos: Twitter)

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A criminal case has been filed against two journalists from daily Cumhuriyet over a news report on the 2015 Ankara Massacre, where 103 people died after a suicide bomb attack by ISIS.

According to the report published on November 22, 2019, on the newspaper's front page, the police in the southeastern Antep province did not act despite receiving a tip on two ISIS members who were involved in the attack.

Alican Uludağ, the reporter who wrote the article, and Olcay Büyüktaş, the newspaper's managing editor responsible for legal affairs, have been charged with "disclosing the identity of an informant" according to Article 6/3 of the Anti-Terror Law and are facing up to three years in prison.

What did the report say?

The report said that a fertilizer seller in Nizip, Antep, notified the police about two people who came to his shop to buy ammonium nitrate, a substance used in improvised explosive devices, just 11 days before the attack.

The police did not round up the two people despite knowing their names and they were involved in the bomb attack, according to the report.

Also, the prosecutor's office sent a file that included the official minutes about this incident to the court of the Ankara Massacre only after the conclusion of the case, the report noted.

CLICK - Nine Defendants in Trial of October 10 Massacre Given Life Imprisonment

After the report was published, the fertilizer seller filed a complaint against the newspaper at the Nizip Security Directorate Anti-Terror Bureau.

The police directorate reported the complaint to the Nizip Prosecutor's Office. It gave a decision of lack of jurisdiction and sent the file to İstanbul. İstanbul Prosecutor's Office of the Press filed a criminal case against the journalists.

İstanbul 32nd Heavy Penal Court accepted the indictment of the prosecutor. The first hearing of the case will be held in November.

Article 6 of Law on Fight Against Terrorism

1) Those who announce or publish that a crime will be committed by terrorist organizations against persons, in a way that makes possible that these persons can be identified, whether or not by specifying their names and identities, or those who disclose or publish the identities of state officials that were assigned in the fight against terrorism or those who mark persons as targets, in the same manner, shall be punished with imprisonment from one to three years.

3)Those who, in violation of article 14 of this Law, disclose or publish the identities of informants shall be punished with imprisonment from one to three years.

The Ankara Massacre

A suicide attack was launched against the Peace Rally in Ulus, Altındağ in the capital city of Ankara at around 10.04 a.m. on October 10, 2015.

While 69 people lost their lives at the scene of incident, a total of 103 people and two attackers lost their lives.

The peace rally participants who lost their lives in the massacre are: Abdülkadir Uyan, Metin Kürklü, Gökhan Akman, Orhan Işıktaş, Gülhan Karlı Elmascan, Yılmaz Elmascan, Nevzat Sayan, Bilgen Parlak, Hacı Kıvrak, Rıdvan Akgül, Rıdvan Akgül, Hacı Mehmet Şah Esin, Gökmen Dalmaç, Elif Kanlıoğlu, Hakan Dursun Akalın, Ercan Adsız, Ayşe Deniz, Berna Koç, Fatma Esen, Gülbahar Aydeniz, Eren Akın, Canberk Bakış, Tayfun Benol, Nizamettin Bağcı, Kasım Otur, Başak Sidar Çevik, Nilgün Çevik, Resul Yanar, Mehmet Ali Kılıç, Tekin Arslan, Sezen Vurmaz, Dilaver Karharman, Onur Tan, Umut Tan, Sarıgül Tüylü, Dilan Sarıkaya, Ali Kitapçı, İsmail Kızılçay, Muhammet Demir, Korkmaz Tedik, Veysel Atılgan, İbrahim Atılgan, Emine Ercan, Kübra Meltem Mollaoğlu, Meryem Bulut, Seyhan Yaylagül, Ebru Mavi, Ali Deniz Uzatmaz, Ziya Saygın, Vahdettin Özgan, Cemal Avşar, Ahmet Katurlu, Selim Örs, Azize Onat, Dicle Deli, Güney Doğan, Binali Korkmaz, Mehmet Zakir Karabulut, Leyla Çiçek, Metin Peşman, Mesut Mak, Adil Gür, Gökhan Gökbönü, Şebnem Yurtman, Osman Turan Bozacı, İdil Güneyi, Abdullah Erol, Mehmet Hayta, Özver Gökhan Arpaçay, Şirin Kılıçalp, Uygar Coşgun, Ahmed Alkhadi, Nurullah Erdoğan, Gözde Arslan, Aycan Kaya, Yunus Delice, Sevgi Öztekin, Mehmet Tevfik Dalgıç, Sevim Şinik, Emin Aydemir, Fatma Karabulut, Ramazan Tunç, Erol Ekici, Feyyat Deniz, Necla Duran, Osman Ervasa, Ramazan Çalışkan, Vedat Erkan, Abdülbari Şenci, Niyazi Büyüksütçü, Gazi Güray, Sabri Elmas, Erhan Avcı, Ümit Seylan, Serdar Ben, Nevzat Özbilgi, Hasan Baykara, Fatma Batur, Bedriye Batur, Ata Önder Atabay, Mustafa Budak, Ağa Bayar.

After the bombs exploded, police officers used pepper gas on the wounded and the ones trying to held them. As a result of this intervention, the wounded could not be referred to hospitals quickly and the survivors were also traumatized by this intervention.

The scene of incident was not placed under protection, crime scene investigation teams and prosecutors did not come to the scene immediately. The teams arrived after 1.5 hours and deputy public prosecutor after 2.5 hours.

The indictment concerning the attack was approved on July 13, 2016. The indictment stated that the attack order was given by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's (ISIS) representative to Turkey İlhami Balı.

It was stated in the indictment that it was the same people who organized the Suruç attack, which killed 33 people. 14 suspects including Balı face from 5,083 to 7,820 years in prison on charges of "attempted murder for multiple times" and "attempting to annihilate constitutional order". The trial started on November 7, 2016 and still continues.

The families of the deceased hold a commemoration ceremony on the 10th day of every month in front of the Train Station.

(HA/VK)