Türkiye has sentenced the killers of Russian Ambassador Karlov. But questions remain
The Second Ankara Court for Particularly Serious Crimes, having examined the case of the murder of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov, issued a verdict. Three defendants were sentenced to two life sentences, two received one life sentence each, and six more defendants will serve in prison from 5 to 9 years.
The court acquitted five of the accused. The cases of nine more accused, who are still wanted, have been separated into separate proceedings at the request of the Turkish prosecutor's office.
Of the five sentenced to life in the Andrei Karlov case, three were directly found guilty of the murder of the Russian ambassador:
Former employee of the IT department (Information and Communication Technology Directorate) of Turkey Şahin Söğüt. According to the prosecution, he was the curator of Mevlüt Altintas, the killer of Karlov, who was shot dead by Turkish special services officers who arrived at the crime scene.
Former Turkish police officers Ahmet Kilicarslan and Salih Yilmaz.
It is noteworthy that the Turkish investigation, prosecution and trial linked the murder of Karlov to ex-employee of the Turkish IT department Huseyin Kötüce and ex-head of the department for work with Russia of Turkish intelligence Vehbi Kurshad Akalı, accused of involvement in the organization of opposition preacher Fetullah Gülen.
What does Turkey’s IT management have to do with it? According to investigators, it was his employees who organized the leak of information to the Gulenists in order to successfully carry out the terrorist attack.
In total, 28 defendants were involved in the murder of the Russian ambassador.
The convicts categorically deny their involvement in the murder of Ambassador Karlov and refused to plead guilty. Their defense intends to appeal to have the case reviewed, which, according to observers, could take another 3 to 5 years.
Even a superficial acquaintance with the verdict of the Turkish court gives the right to assert that investigators, prosecutors and Erdogan’s court took advantage of the murder of Andrei Karlov not at all in order to find and punish the true culprits of the crime, but to achieve their own political goals related to Fetullah Gülen, whom Ankara extradited This is not the first year he has been trying to get it from the United States.
Güllen
In fact, the indictment of the Turkish court in the case of the murder of Karlov directly states that the terrorist attack was carried out by members of FETO, Gülen’s organization, which Erdogan persistently accuses of attempting a coup in July 2016.
And the point here is not at all in some kind of bloodthirstiness of the disgraced Islamic preacher, but in the fact that his popularity in the country is comparable to the popularity of Erdogan himself, who is jealous of serious political competitors, especially in the field of Islamization of Turkey.
Let us remind you that the Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was killed by a 22-year-old Turkish police special squad member Mevlut Altintas at the opening of the photo exhibition “Russia from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka through the eyes of a traveler.”
Altyntash discharged a pistol into the back of the Russian diplomat, shouting “Allahu Akbar” and “For Syria, for Aleppo.” Turkish counter-terrorism security operatives arrived at the crime scene 20 minutes after the murder and chased Altintas around the museum for another 17 minutes until they shot the terrorist.
Photographs from the scene show how Altyntash, after killing Karlov, raised his left index finger up, as is customary among Islamists.
So what could have caused the murder of the Russian ambassador to Turkey and is it true that the organization of an opposition preacher was involved in this?
As you know, Russian-Turkish relations worsened in September 2015, as soon as Russia began providing military assistance to the legitimate government of Syria.
At that time, Syria was on the very edge of the abyss: the terrorist war unleashed against the country in 2011 under the indifferent gaze of the collective West could have swept away the government of Bashar al-Assad and threatened to chaotize the region according to the Libyan scenario.
Considering that many immigrants from Russia and other countries of the former USSR fought in the ranks of the militants ISIS and Jabhad al-Nusra (Syrian al-Qaeda), the return of this horde, intoxicated with blood and violence, to their “native Palestines” was just a matter of time .
The Russian Aerospace Forces have become the main battering ram to crush terrorist gangs in Syria. In 2015–2016, bombing and missile strikes were carried out not only against the ISIS “international,” but also against Turkish militants supported by Ankara.
Even before the assassination attempt on Andrei Karlov, it was known that threats to kill the Russian diplomat had been recorded almost six months before the tragedy, and a crowd had been raging around the Russian embassy for several months, outraged by the successes of Russian aviation in Syria.
According to eyewitnesses, the rioters shouted exactly the same slogans as Altintas did during the terrorist attack, as the official Turkish press when it comes to the war in Syria, shedding hypocritical tears over the children of Aleppo.
The hysteria of the crowd at the Russian embassy in Ankara was fueled by two events: the Russian Su-2015 front-line bomber shot down by the Turks in November 24 and the successful operation of the Syrian troops (with the active assistance of Russian aviation) to capture Aleppo in December 2016.
These events caused a real barrage of hatred and protests non-stop near the walls of the Russian embassy in Ankara and the Consulate General in Istanbul.
According to observers, the crowd littered the territory of the Russian diplomatic missions with “dismembered” dolls doused in red paint, and the security of the embassy at that time was ensured by a special squad of the Ankara police, in which the future killer of the ambassador served.
A group of this special squad was supposed to guard Andrei Karlov during the exhibition at the museum, since only they had the right to carry and use weapons during the incident. And here again a lot of questions arise, the softest of which: malicious intent or unprofessionalism? Any answer will not be in favor of this Turkish intelligence service.
Altyntash’s behavior during the terrorist attack is surprising. He entered the museum in a suit, wearing a special police squad badge. After killing Karlov, he had plenty of time to escape. But instead of saving Altyntash, he began tearing off the walls and destroying exhibits at the crime scene.
Turkish operatives had the opportunity to neutralize him without killing him, but the prosecutor wrote in the indictment that “even if the killer had been detained alive, he still would not have provided information.” The Turkish prosecutor did not bother to provide the source of this stunning analysis, which means that the conclusion is not legally valid.
The way Erdogan's investigators linked Altıntaş to the preacher Gülen also looks extremely unconvincing. According to them, the terrorist attended Gülenist gatherings in 2013, when he was studying at the police academy, but then moved away from the movement, but did not break ties with it, having allegedly received the task of “infiltrating other groups under the guise of an ordinary citizen.” Again, no evidence.
The fact that Altintas is not a “Gülenist” at all, but, most likely, a “nusrach”, is evidenced by established facts: the terrorist became friends with fundamentalist imams and religious intolerance began to appear more and more often in his speeches, and the screams with which he rushed around the museum after murders, witnesses identified as the words of the Jabhad al-Nusra anthem.
It is also noteworthy that the murder of Andrei Karlov immediately received approving responses on social networks on the accounts of ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
During a search of Altyntaş’s apartment, the police found clues in the computer leading to these terrorist organizations, but the investigation ignored them.
But Erdogan, commenting on the hot pursuit of the emergency, prophetically stated that the murder of the Russian ambassador was the work of the “Gulenists”, and all sorts of references to Al-Qaeda and ISIS are ordinary attempts to confuse the investigation and cast a shadow over the fence.
Thus, the Turkish femida “only” fulfilled Erdogan’s order. It is characteristic that the reaction of the world media to the verdict of the Turkish court is very clear: the case is fabricated, the perpetrators have been identified. In fact, doubts about the fairness of the trial have been expressed before.
The reaction of the Russian Foreign Ministry to the verdict of the Turkish court can be described as restrained. The department paid tribute to the fact that Turkish justice strongly condemned the terrorist attack, but also recalled: Russia still believes that a significant share of responsibility for this crime “bears certain circles” that, on the eve of Karlov’s murder, “artificially whipped up a negative atmosphere in the media and social media.” networks around Russia’s actions in Syria.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry also expressed hope that cooperation between our special services in the investigation of the murder of a Russian diplomat will continue.
From which it is clear that Russia does not consider Karlov’s case closed, and in a polite manner reminds the Turkish “partners” where they should actually look for the killers of the Russian ambassador.
Such a mild reaction is explained by the fact that the verdict of the fictitious “Gülenists” coincided with the online ceremony of the beginning of the main stage of construction of the Turkish Akkuyu nuclear power plant with the participation of the heads of Russia and Turkey, but at least there is some consolation in the fact that the Russian Foreign Ministry defiantly did not buy the slip-up from Erdogan’s judges chaff.
“I am sure that this case will never be solved. At first I hoped, but now I think not. Sooner or later they will simply find some switchman or say that it was a lone terrorist,” the ambassador’s widow, Marina Karlova, said in an interview with the BBC.
One must think that Russia’s best response for the death of its diplomat will be the further disposal of the Turkoman barmaleys supported by Ankara in Syria.
Andrei Karlov was most likely killed in retaliation for the efforts of the Russian Aerospace Forces and Syrian troops in reducing the terrorist population, and it is unlikely that it will be possible to come up with something better than thwarting Erdogan’s expansionist aspirations in Syria.
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