The laptop that got lost in the US
I believe it was naive of me to constantly publish documents on this column without thinking their originals were in the hands of the United States.
The New York court, dealing with the Reza Zarrab case, is even writing down the illegal wiretappings listened by sellouts.
It seems like documents about the Dec. 17-25, 2013 operations - which targeted Turkish government officials accusing them of corruption - have reached the U.S. through a couple of channels.
One of them is a laptop that went missing on Dec. 17, 2013.
Yakup Saygılı, Istanbul financial crimes unit chief who had led the Dec. 17-25 operation, went to the U.S. to attend a joint program organized by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Istanbul police department between Sept. 20 and Oct. 1, 2012.
Upon his return to Turkey, he claimed that he lost the laptop, which belonged to the police department, in the U.S.
An investigation was launched, but then closed, and a new laptop was eventually bought to replace the last one.
Information in the laptop
What is worrying is that the lost laptop contained information Saygılı was keeping about the Dec. 17 operation.
“Was there an investigation launched regarding Dec. 17 at that time?” would be a relevant question that comes to mind.
It started on June 6, 2011 with an investigation into Turgut Happani, the driver of Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab. Zarrab was arrested in Miami in March 2016 for allegedly conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran. He was arrested in Turkey as part of the Dec. 17- 25, 2013 operations.
Saygılı took this laptop with him, updating the latest information when he went to the U.S.
Isn’t it unbelievable that he lost a laptop with top secret information on it?
But this is not the only strange thing.
During the investigation, they did not ask Saygılı what there was on the laptop, whether they were encrypted or not and whether or not they could be used against Turkey in the event that it ended up in the hands of the U.S.
So, they did not care about the information lost.
Of course, why would they ask these questions when the person who lost the laptop was a member of the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) and the one who conducted the investigation was also a FETÖ member?
I am surprised they did not give a prize for losing the laptop.
Now this file is waiting to be opened again and that will of course be in Turkey because they already started using that information in the U.S.
Do you think that same court that uses the wiretappings, ignore the laptop?
Metin Topuz was with him
Wait for it, it gets more interesting.
It is said that arrested U.S. consulate in Istanbul employee Metin Topuz accompanied Yakup Saygılı during his trip to the U.S.
Topuz was arrested for his links to the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ). He is now in prison.
His arrest triggered the U.S. to suspend Turkish citizens’ visa applications. This shows us how important he was for the U.S.
This is not the only link between Topuz and Saygılı.
In the investigation of the mobile phone of Topuz, Saygılı tops the list of the 121 people connected to FETÖ, including former prosecutor Zekeriya Öz.
When the documents were investigated, it was seen that the two had deep relations.
Twelve days prior to the Dec. 17 operation, Topuz went to Istanbul’s financial crimes unit and met Saygılı.
Topuz was not alone in the meeting that took place on Dec. 5, 2013, which lasted one hour and one minute.
Topuz came with three people, and they were greeted by Saygılı.
If you take into account the fact that even former Interior Minister Muammer Güler was not informed about the Dec. 17 operation, we can understand what kind of an important person Topuz was.
The day Zarrab was caught in the U.S., Topuz wrote through WhatsApp: “The Iranian will start speaking very soon.”
I wonder what this man, who knows so much, wrote on the morning of Dec. 17.
