"...The
interception of Syria-bound weapons consignments took place in January
2014 in Turkey, when a convoy of MIT trucks loaded with arms and
ammunition was stopped and searched near the Syrian border in the
southern provinces of Hatay and Adana. Several security officials who stopped the trucks are currently being tried for “spying” charges. The
incident triggered a huge controversy in Turkey with many bashing the
government for explicitly supporting terrorism in neighboring Syria...."
A still image grabbed from a
video published on the website of the Turkish Cumhuriyet daily on May
29, 2015 shows mortar shells in boxes intercepted on a truck destined
for Syria.
A
prosecutor in Turkey has demanded that two journalists who revealed that
Turkey's state intelligence agency had helped deliver arms to Takfiri
militant groups in neighboring Syria be imprisoned. Can Dündar, editor-in-chief of center-left Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet
along with the paper's Ankara representative Erdem Gül appeared in
court in the Turkish port city of Istanbul on Thursday to face charges
of "espionage and treason." President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken legal action in person against Dündar, requesting life sentence for him. The
pair face life sentence and an additional 42-year term in prison on
counts of charges ranging from espionage to subversion and disclosure
of secret information. Dündar
told reporters outside the courthouse before his testimony that the
state is understandably in panic over the revelations. “There
is a crime that has been committed by the state that they are trying to
cover up,” Dündar said, adding, “We came here to defend journalism. We
came here to defend the right of the public to obtain the news and their
right to know if their government is feeding them lies. We came here to
show and to prove that governments cannot engage in illegal activity
and to defend this.” “We are
being charged with being spies, the president is saying that we are
traitors to the state. We are not spies, we are not traitors, we are not
heroes; we are journalists.”
The released footage, which daily Cumhuriyet posted on its website in late May,purportedly
showed that trucks belonging to Turkey’s the National Intelligence
Organization (MIT) carrying weapons to the Takfiri terror groups
operating in neighboring Syria. The Cumhuriyet video also shows trucks of the MIT being inspected by security officers.
The
daily said the trucks were carrying around 1,000 mortar shells,
hundreds of grenade launchers and more than 80,000 rounds of ammunition
for light and heavy weapons. The file photo shows militants in an unknown location in Syria.The
interception of Syria-bound weapons consignments took place in January
2014 in Turkey, when a convoy of MIT trucks loaded with arms and
ammunition was stopped and searched near the Syrian border in the
southern provinces of Hatay and Adana.
Several security officials who stopped the trucks are currently being tried for “spying” charges.
The
incident triggered a huge controversy in Turkey with many bashing the
government for explicitly supporting terrorism in neighboring Syria.
