The Supreme Board of Prosecutor and Judges, or HSYK, has ordered the prosecution of five public prosecutors and three gendarmerie commander for their role in the interception of Syria-bound intel trucks in the two major southern cities, Hatay and Adana.
The 2nd chamber of HSYK decided on Thursday that public prosecutors Süleyman Bağrıyanık, Ahmet Karaca, Aziz Takçı, Özcan Şişman and Yaşar Kavalcıoğlu and gendarmerie commanders Özkan Çokay, Erdal Yılmaz and Kubilay Ayvaz should be prosecuted for illegally stopping and searching the trucks that belonged to the National Intelligence Organisation, or MIT, in January 2014.
“It is obvious that social peace, tranquility and social trust will be adversely impacted while trust and respect for the judiciary will be removed, if and when the investigations are conducted without looking after the sense of justice, pursuing different goals and aiming to eliminate all judicial powers," said the chair of 2nd chamber of HSYK, Mehmet Yılmaz, in his statement.
In early 2014, a group of anti-government prosecutors and military personnel were involved in an illegal operation against Syria-bound secret service trucks carrying aid to Turkmen living in Bayırbucak, north of Latakia.
The gendarmes, acting on the orders of a public prosecutor, stopped and searched the MIT trucks, on suspicion that they were carrying weapons and ammunition to al-Qaeda fighting in Syria, despite a national law forbidding such an act. Those, who have been involved in the illegal operation, have been removed from the post.
