German in Turkish custody: a victim of political calculation?

A German of Turkish descent has been in prison for years – and may never be released. His eventful political past could be his undoing

The 76-year-old German citizen Enver Altayli has been in custody in Ankara since 2017. The public prosecutor’s office accuses him of running a terrorist organization and spying against Turkey. Both the indictment and the course of the trial so far are a legal farce according to Western constitutional standards. A testimony against Altayli was apparently made under torture and has since been withdrawn. However, he faces up to 42 years and six months in prison.

Allegedly explosive document from Russia

The court recently added a 2015 document of particularly explosive power to Altayli’s file. According to the indictment, it is a report by the deputy head of the Russian secret service FSB. The document, written in Cyrillic, was seized on Altayli’s mobile phone when he was arrested in the summer of 2017 and kept secret for several years. According to the court record, Altayli is said to have received the photo file from Washington DC.

The file contains a Turkish translation of the document. According to this, the FSB deputy proposes to the director of the secret service that Russian fighter jets penetrate the Turkish airspace in order to provoke the Turkish air force to react.

Allegations of widespread conspiracy

Furthermore, Russia should urge its liaison officers at the so-called Islamic State (IS) to put pressure on representatives of the Turkish government, the Turkish military and the Turkish secret service. ISIS should demand financial support from Turkey. If this is not paid, terrorist attacks should be threatened.

Commanders of IS and the Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organization in Turkey, should be tricked into attacking Turkey, said the FSB vice-president. In addition, the Russian agents infiltrated into the Turkish secret service MIT should be activated in order to misinform the Turkish secret service leadership about the situation on the Syrian border.

In another letter, the FSB vice-president demands that the negative attitudes of the Turkish population and the hatred in the country should be incited so that the party of Turkish President Erdogan can be protested. The president’s daughter should also be watched more closely because she owns hospitals in Turkey where IS fighters are treated. More information needs to be gathered about this. And finally, the war should be relocated from Syrian soil to southeastern Turkey in order to destabilize the country politically and militarily.

Doubtful authenticity

All of this sounds like from a bad agent thriller and the authenticity of the document remains unclear, as with many intelligence documents. One thing is certain: on November 24, 2015, a Turkish fighter plane shot down a Russian fighter jet on the Turkish-Syrian border because it had penetrated Turkish airspace. That could have been a motive for the Russian catalog of measures to destabilize. In the following year there were several attacks associated with IS and the PKK in Turkey with many dead and the attempted coup in summer 2016. In December 2016, a Turkish police officer shot and killed the then Russian ambassador in Ankara.

Moving past

Altayli has a past that makes you sit up and take notice. He was a member of the right-wing extremist party MHP until 1990, was sent to Germany by the Turkish secret service to study at a university, and returned to Turkey to live in exile in Germany again for several years after the 1980 coup. The Turkish military regime at the time persecuted all those who thought differently politically. Altayli was active as a diplomat for Turkey and is considered a sharp critic of any cooperation between Ankara and Moscow.

Merkel spoke to Erdogan about Altayli

The federal government is apparently worried about the future of the German citizen, because the Chancellor said she raised the Altayli case in talks with President Erdogan. Martin Erdmann, former German ambassador in Ankara, is said to have visited the 76-year-old several times in the high-security prison Sincan in Ankara. The indictment states that the conversations during the visits were bugged and handed over to the Turkish secret service.

Altayli believes the publication of the document is itself a mistake. The court should have kept it a secret for the “security of Turkey and Turkish-Russian relations,” he said on one of the last days of the trial. The document was leaked to him and he handed it over to an advisor to the then Turkish Prime Minister Davutoglu six years ago. The advisor has meanwhile confirmed the acceptance and disclosure to Davutoglu to the Turkish press.

Daughter defends father in court

Altayli’s daughter Dilara Yilmaz represents her father in court. She says that he handed the document over to the Turkish Prime Minister’s advisor in 2016 as proof of his loyalty to the Turkish state. Yilmaz wanted the counselor to testify in court as a witness. This was refused.

Never again in freedom?

Today is one of the last days of the trial against the 76-year-old. Erdogan is turning more and more to Russian President Putin and distancing himself from the West. Altayli’s critical stance towards Moscow could be his undoing. Observers assume that it was decided at the highest level in Ankara that Altayli should not spend a day of his life in freedom.