A Letter Dedicated to Dani Rodrik

An Interesting Letter

"Dani Rodrik, a fervent attacker of Fethullah Gulen and Gulen Movement as well as charter schools which he calls Gulen Charter Schools, would probably be surprised to see this article. Sometimes things do not go in the way you think, Mr. Rodrik. Just take a look at the statements here and you will see that innocent looking people were actually hiding their real agenda. A very interesting read..."



After the Balyoz case was concluded (September 2012), I penned a seven-piece “Balyoz case judgments” series and reserved the final piece for statements by Mehmet Selim Yavuz, the son and defense lawyer of retired general Ahmet Yavuz, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in the case.
These remarks by Selim Yavuz were particularly interesting: “I have been together with these 364 men [the Balyoz suspects] for three years, day and night. I have witnessed their conversations. I listened to them with objectivity. I listened carefully in search of any flaw in their statements. All have been saying the same thing for three years: that Balyoz is a lie and we have been picked as victims. You cannot possibly make all these 364 people who do not know each other tell the same lie for three consecutive years.”

The day I published these statements by Selim Yavuz (Oct. 30, 2012), I received an email message from a reader of mine.

My reader, who notes that his deceased father-in-law was one of the military servicemen involved in the March 9, 1971 “leftist” coup attempt and then acquitted in the relevant trials, addressed a letter to Selim Yavuz, asking me to forward this letter to him.

I forwarded the letter to Selim Yavuz and I closed this chapter, observing the condition made by my reader to keep the names confidential.

However, when I observed the role played by the "families" as part of propaganda activities, saying that the Balyoz case was based on "fabricated documents" and expressing belief in the absolute innocence of the suspects in the case, I sent a message to this reader and told him that with his permission, I would like to publish his letter to Selim Yavuz.

Upon receiving permission from my reader, whose name I am keeping confidential, I publish his letter, which I dedicate to Dani Rodrik, the son-in-law of chief suspect Çetin Doğan in the Balyoz investigation.

Dear Mehmet Selim,

When I got engaged to my wife, my father-in-law [an omitted part consists of detailed information on the identity of my reader and his father-in-law—A.G.] was in jail in connection with the Madanoğlu case. He was facing the death penalty. As you know, General [Cemal] Madanoğlu and his friends were charged with attempting a coup on March 9, 1971. If you look at the case files and the prosecutor's indictments in the Madanoğlu case, you would see all the details, as well as the name and mission of my father-in-law.

Let me make a long story short: All the people who were arrested stayed in jail for 9-12 months; some of them were tortured, but all were acquitted in the end.

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