Turkey declares vanishing truck to Syria 'state secret'
Turkey’s government has used the "state secret" shield to conceal the cargo of a truck suspected of transporting arms to Syria and banished the prosecutor who attempted to search the vehicle.
With the start of the corruption probe on Dec. 17, Turks came to realize that various security and judicial offices in the state had been busy amassing explosive dossiers to corner the government. Promising trouble for Turkey at home and abroad, some of the dossiers pertain to Syria. Depending on developments, they may also be deployed on the chessboard in the coming days.
Turkey’s judicial system, managing to somehow muddle along, short-circuited as the government embarked on a series of interventions, removing investigators from the probe and amending procedural rules to thwart the investigation. To speak of the separation of powers in Turkey has become a luxury, with prosecutors and police getting burned if they touch the government.
The government argues that its interventions in the judiciary and the police are aimed at purging the “parallel state” — the presence of the Gulen community in the state establishment.
A similar intervention occurred on Jan. 1 when a truck was stopped in Hatay, a province bordering Syria, following a tip that it was transporting weapons. Despite their attempts to perform their duties, the security forces and the prosecutor were scandalously barred from searching the vehicle. The suspicious truck was whisked away from the prosecutor, the gendarmerie forces and the police on the grounds that it constituted a “state secret.” Regional prosecutor Ozcan Sisman was threatened by about 15 members of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) when he insisted on searching the truck. The prosecutor was forced to quit the probe and was eventually transferred from Adana to Gaziantep. It was effectively a punishment. Sisman was replaced by Gaziantep prosecutor Aziz Takci, who also took over the truck case.
