So, journalists are not spies, right?

The prosecutor’s opinion in the case of journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül has been disclosed. As luck would have it, among the charges there was no mention of spying.  

The trial prosecutor sorted them out one by one. I was one of those who had drawn attention to the extremeness, the disproportions and distortions in the indictment. I was duly “beaten” for acting before the prosecutor. Now the prosecutor has come to the same point; he is saying things close to what I had said before. 

It is not because I am a soothsayer but because I used my skills on moderation, conscience and reasoning. I would like to recommend them to all who refrain from using them; it is always better to overuse them. 

The office of the prosecutor looks like they have radically revised the opinions in the initial indictment. Well, what about the others? Where did the attempted coup and assistance to an armed organization without becoming a member go? Where? These need to be separated from the file, just like the spying charges, says this opinion. 

According to the last opinion of the prosecutor, Dündar and Gül can only be accused of possession and exposure of classified information and documents of the state.  

The two journalists will now be tried on accessing and exposing information which by nature should have been kept secret for the security of the state and political benefits. This serious reduction in the crime reflects on the punishment which was sought. 

The first one was a life sentence and aggravated life imprisonment, two life sentences plus 30 years; now only a maximum demand of 30 years is left. 

It was an indictment flying in the air. With these reductions, it is now much nearer to being back to earth. 
There is only one obstacle, a last debate left unsolved. 

The prosecutor did not come close to accepting that a similar story that was published in daily Cumhuriyet about the trucks belonging to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) had been published months pervious at daily Aydınlık. He was persistent that the national security secret that had to be kept confidential was first disclosed by the Cumhuriyet journalists. 

However, there is a visible similarity in the content. As far as we know, Aydınlık was not subject to any investigation for the MİT trucks story they published. Besides, the paper had been tried and acquitted for publishing a super confidential conversation on the Süleyman Şah tomb. The court ruled that once it was circulated on the Internet, the sound recordings had lost their state secret features, thus publishing them would not constitute a crime.

The prosecutor has rejected to take this ruling as a precedent. 

It was beyond reason that while there was no final court order for the prosecutors and military commanders who stopped the MİT trucks in the first place on spying charges and an attempted coup, that while those who leaked the images had not been tried, these two journalists, who this way or that way published the story, would be tried on spying charges and abetting an armed organization, the existence of which has not been proven. 

Moreover, how could they be charged with spying when they published the story instead of selling it to another country?

The prosecutor is finally accepting that it is impossible to accuse of spying when no country to spy for is present. He also acknowledges that there was no other evidence in the file to prove spying. 

When these are eliminated, what is left is violating the media ban and the confidentiality of the investigation. 

This seems to be the strongest aspect of the opinion; let me be the first to tell you.