Deniz Feneri

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Deniz Feneri eVpng

The Deniz Feneri e. V. (German: lighthouse) is a Turkish - speaking non-governmental aid organization in Germany, whose officials were convicted in 2008 for fraudulent donations amounting to at least 16 million euros.

Foundation and organization

In 1996. on the Turkish channel is channel 7 the mission Şehir ve Ramazan (German: The city and Ramadan) launched the needy during the holy month belongs assistance in terms of food. A new weekly television program called Deniz Feneri developed from this program , which also helped people in need outside of Lent through donations .

In 1998 the Deniz Feneri Yardımlaşma Derneği association was founded in Turkey. On February 27, 1999, Deniz Feneri e. V. in Germany.

According to a court ruling, the German association was “a shell that only served as a vehicle for collecting donations from bona fide donors”, an association that “in fact did not exist in Germany”. The signatures of founding members required by German association law were "procured from friends and family" by the association chairman, "General meetings did not take place" and "corresponding minutes were made retrospectively [...] to give the German tax authorities the appearance of a non-profit association to maintain with members ”. For aid actually made with the donation money, “there was no such organizational structure in Germany”.

In addition to the official bookkeeping , which was “kept exclusively to maintain the status of a non-profit association”, there was a different unofficial bookkeeping, “in whose structure Deniz Feneri Dernegi e. V. was set up as a dependent subsidiary of the Turkish Deniz Feneri Dernegi “and in which the actual business transactions, the use of the funds, among other things, for substantial black wage payments, were recorded. "These sub-bookkeeping for the German association or the German company were part of a larger bookkeeping that was kept in Turkey at the television station."

Criminal proceedings for donation fraud in Germany

On April 25, 2007, the police searched 14 objects with 340 officers and arrested three former club officials.

On September 1, 2008, before the commercial criminal chamber of the LG Frankfurt a. M. the trial of the three defendants who were accused by the public prosecutor of infidelity and fraud . According to the indictment, donations totaling 41,423,158.85 euros were collected between 2002 and 2007, of which 18,584,000 euros were embezzled. After reaching an agreement about the penalties and the termination of the proceedings , the defendants made extensive confessions, so that many witnesses did not have to come.

Two of the defendants were sentenced to several years imprisonment on September 17, 2008 for fraud, and one was sentenced to 22 months probation for aiding and abetting.

The court also found that the money landed in the AKP environment . The judge said the organization was run by four people associated with Channel 7 in Turkey.

It was made for Deniz Feneri e. V. instituted an insolvency administration and the German license for the channel Kanal 7 Int was revoked by the Commission for Admission and Supervision (ZAK) of the state media authorities , because "on the one hand, responsibility for the programs is no longer perceived from Germany, on the other hand, those formerly responsible for several years' imprisonment have been convicted ”.

The public prosecutor's office is still investigating 15 people on suspicion of breach of trust or fraud and at the beginning of March 2009 sent requests for mutual legal assistance to Turkey.

Consequences of the criminal proceedings in Turkey

The criminal proceedings against Deniz Feneri triggered a political scandal in Turkey and media coverage that far surpassed Germany's.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threatened the media outlets reporting the scandal. The EU and various press associations then warned that press freedom was endangered by Erdoğan's threats. Despite warnings to Erdoğan to respect the freedom of the press, he called for a press boycott to report on corruption cases.

In a resolution on the 2008 progress report, the European Parliament called on the Turkish government and judicial authorities to cooperate better with EU member states and the authorities in criminal matters such as fraud, for example in the case of Deniz Feneri or the Turkish Islam Holdings .

On February 24, 2009, two messengers handed the German files over to the public prosecutor in Ankara, who stated that their translation into Turkish would be completed in March. In mid-May 2009, the Turkish public prosecutor's office announced that the files had now been translated, but that they had turned out to be incomplete and that a further request for legal assistance was being sent to Germany. At the request of the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office, the Turkish judiciary began interrogations at the beginning of May, including those of Aykut Zahid Akman .

Response from Deniz Feneri Derneği

Deniz Feneri Derneği's logo

In response to the donation scandal, the Turkish association Deniz Feneri Derneği stated that there were no organizational connections to the association in Germany. Except for the name, the two clubs have nothing in common. In addition, it was declared that the association had received a total of 6.94 million euros from Deniz Feneri e. V. received. However, this is not unusual and the Turkish association works with various aid organizations, such as Oxfam .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Imprisonment for Turkish donation collectors , FAZ from September 17, 2008
  2. ↑ Deniz Feneri e. V. according to www.handelsregister.de: from 1999 VR 1125 at the Groß-Gerau district court, from 2005 VR 11976 at the Frankfurt am Main district court
  3. ↑ Reasons for the judgment in the Deniz Feneri case (PDF; 158 kB) , press release from the Frankfurt am Main regional court of November 25, 2008
  4. ↑ Small request (PDF; 65 kB) from Abg. Weiß (SPD) of February 12, 2009 regarding the donation scandal in connection with the association “Deniz Feneri e. V. “and answer of the Minister of the Interior and for Sport Volker Bouffier March 27, 2009
  5. ↑ Deniz Feneri'nde RTÜK Başkanı da var! , Milliyet , accessed September 7, 2008.
  6. ^ Turkish donation collectors: Have diverted funds , FAZ from September 1, 2008, accessed on September 7, 2008.
  7. ↑ Past the lighthouse ( Memento from October 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) BY GEORG LEPPERT, FR from September 2, 2008
  8. ↑ Frankfurt: Donation fraud for the Islamic cause ( Memento from November 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), Frankfurter Rundschau , accessed on November 6, 2008.
  9. ↑ Insolvency proceedings Deniz Feneri e. V. ( Memento from January 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Two Turkish-language channels lose their license from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from November 13, 2008
  11. ↑ a b Donation scandal - traces lead to Turkey FR 6 May 2009
  12. ^ Turkish prime minister urges boycott on Dogan Group newspapers , Hürriyet , accessed September 19, 2008.
  13. ↑ Kanal 7'de çalışanların inanılmaz yükselişi ( Memento from September 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), habercem.com, accessed on September 12, 2008.
  14. ↑ Ertugrul Ozkok: How Hurriyet published news on the Deniz Feneri case , Hurriyet , accessed on 25 September, 2008.
  15. ↑ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/DE/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52009IP0312&from=DE Resolution of the European Parliament of March 12, 2009 on the 2008 progress report on Turkey (P6_TA- PROV (2009) 0134), point 51
  16. ↑ The Ankara Public Prosecutor's Office received the file in the Deniz Feneri fraud TRT February 24, 2009
  17. ↑ The week of May 15-22 , Istanbul Post
  18. ↑ Deniz Feneri uneasy with allegations about its name ( memento October 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), Today's Zaman , accessed September 7, 2008.

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