A wiretap, that was authorized by a Turkish court amid investigation into an organized crime network in Turkey, revealed secret talks between Turkish journalist Ahmed Hakan Coskus, 53, and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s point man, Mehmet Fatih Saraç.
Both of which are prominent Islamist figures.
Saraç is the son of prominent religious sect leader Muhammed Emin Saraç; a role model for President Erdoğan, who was seen in 2014 kissing the hand of the cleric as a sign of respect and reverence.
Saraç was also a long-time business partner of Yasin al-Qadi, who for years had been listed as an al-Qaeda financier by both the US Treasury and the UN.
While Coşkun grew up as a son of Mufti (senior cleric) Hamdi Coşkun. He had worked for Islamist media outlets and had a long career in Turkey’s Islamist media and was close to political Islamists, the Turkish equivalent of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Saraç has served also for some years as deputy chairman in İlim Yayma Vakfı (Foundation for the Dissemination of Information), a Turkish Muslim Brotherhood. Before he was appointed in 2012, at the special request of Erdoğan himself, as deputy chairman of the board of directors at Ciner Media Group and its divisions; including the Habertürk newspaper, Habertürk TV, news websites and radio stations.
During his time as a deputy chairman, the editorial policy of the country’s influential media took favor of Erdoğan and his government, in exchange of governmental contracts and tenders poured in the benefit of Ciner, who has interests in various sectors from mining to energy.
The Foundation for the Dissemination of Information was flagged by the Central Intelligence Agency as part of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In a report that was declassified, the CIA pointed to İlim Yayma as “the cover name of an Arab secret organization which has as its purpose the establishment of secret schools to train Imams and preachers in all countries where the teaching of Arabic speech and writing is not allowed, and the support of these schools with funds.”
The foundation’s purpose has been to support the establishment of imam-hatip religious schools.
Both Coşkun and President Erdoğan are graduates of such schools in Turkey.
Coşkun is often embedded with President Erdoğan’s press corps when he travels abroad for state visits and parrots the government’s narrative in his writings in the newspaper and comments on CNN Türk.
The wiretap was authorized by the Istanbul 2nd High Criminal Court, which was looking into terrorism-related cases. The authorization was granted on December 24, 2012 as part of investigation file No. 2012/656.
This investigation was targeting an organized crime, in which Al-Qadi and Erdoğan’s son Bilal were all leading suspects and were the subjects of detention warrants issued on December 25, 2013 by the prosecutors.
However, Erdoğan stepped in, illegally preventing the execution of the warrants by ordering the police to ignore the prosecutor’s orders.
After the removal of the prosecutors and police chiefs who were involved in the investigation, Erdoğan managed to whitewash the crimes of his associates.
