İlhan Cihaner

İlhan Cihaner

İlhan Cihaner (* 1968 in Kars ) is a Turkish member of parliament and former senior public prosecutor.

Professional and political career

Cihaner worked in Reyhanlı , İdil and Çamlıdere as a public prosecutor ( Cumhuriyet Savcısı ). In Vezirköprü , Alaşehir and Erzincan he worked as Cumhuriyet Başsavcısı (German: Chief Public Prosecutor) and in Adana again as a simple public prosecutor.

Cihaner attracted attention in 1999 because, as a public prosecutor in İdil, he was investigating civil servants, officers, village guards and defectors. Cihaner wrote a three-page report ( fezleke ) about a nationwide active clandestine organization, which he called JITEM . He charged this organization with murders, " disappearances " of arrested persons, kidnappings and bomb attacks. Cihaner declared himself incompetent and handed the case over to the later disbanded State Security Court in Diyarbakır . Since then, only proceedings against named village guards and defectors, but not against named officers, have been opened, also because the case was shifted back and forth between the Diyarbakır Grand Criminal Chamber, the military jurisdiction and the conflict of jurisdiction court .

Replacement as public prosecutor, arrest, demotion and change to politics

Cihaner's investigations in Erzincan against the Islamic İsmail-Ağa community there for fraud, illegal fundraising and illegal teaching of children of preschool and elementary school age resulted in suspended sentences of 11 defendants in 2013. After several arrests as part of an operation in connection with the investigation, the Justice Ministry, led by the Islamic conservative AKP government, dispatched special investigators to oversee Cihaner's investigation on instructions from Minister Sadullah Ergin . The investigation against Cihaner lasted four months. At the same time, there were disputes over competence with the special prosecutor of Erzurum, who wanted to expand the investigation and wanted to charge the İsmail-Ağa community as an armed organization. Cihaner finally gave the case to Erzurum. Almost a year later, the same public prosecutor had Cihaner's living quarters and workplace searched in a preliminary investigation, whereupon Cihaner was arrested on suspicion of being a member of Ergenekon and of abusing his authority.

The Court of Cassation ordered his immediate and unconditional release from prison due to lack of evidence and filed a criminal complaint against the court in Erzincan dealing with the case. Thereafter, Cihaner was demoted and transferred to a lower rank as prosecutor of the republic to Adana . Cihaner himself comments on the situation he got into after investigating religious brotherhoods: “Anyone who acts against these groups ends up in jail and faces charges. Everything is controlled from a central office. ”He continues:“ In this country, generals and judges are illegally wiretapped. The public prosecutor and the intelligence service would have to put a stop to this. But they don't do anything. I have investigated these groups and have been hindered. The people who hold the strings in this power game have sent messages to certain circles over my head. "

Cihaner saw not only the İsmail Ağa community but also the Fethullah Gülen movement as responsible for his arrest. He criticized the influence of the Gülen movement with the words: "Anyone who messes with Gülen will be destroyed".

In the 2011 parliamentary election , Cihaner ran for the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP) in Denizli Province and was elected to the National Assembly.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Curriculum vitae on Parliament's website
2. ↑ Article about JİTEM , habervesaire.com (Turkish)
3. ↑ Article about JİTEM , haber3.com, (Turkish)
4. ↑ Short biographical article about İlhan Cihaner , haberler.com (Turkish)
5. ↑ Article about Cihaner's investigations , haber.sol.org.tr (Turkish)
6. ↑ Article about Cihaner's arrest ( Memento of the original from March 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Bugün (Turkish) 
7. ↑ Article on Cihaner's release from prison , Hürriyet , accessed on June 18, 2010, (Turkish)
8. ↑ Article about Cihaner's transfer to Adana ( Memento from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Cumhuriyet (Turkish)
9. ↑ freiheit.org: Chief Public Prosecutor Cihaner takes on the Gülen movement. ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 128 kB), Turkey Bulletin of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom . Edition 2010-19, p. 12f.
10. ↑ Maximilian Popp: The Godfather: Anyone who messes with Gülen will be destroyed , Der Spiegel, August 6, 2012. Accessed November 21, 2013
11. ↑ weekly German-language Internet magazine in Turkey Istanbul Post : The period from June 14th to June 28th ( Memento from January 23rd 2011 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

• Boris Kálnoky: Suspected coup leads to arrests, Die Welt , February 24, 2010.