Özgür Çelik's first reaction to the indictment: Slander and get away!

An indictment has been prepared in the investigation into the CHP Istanbul Provincial Elections. Prison sentences ranging from one to three years are sought for 10 people, including Özgür Çelik, İnan Güney, and Rıza Akpolat. Speaking about the indictment, CHP Istanbul Provincial Chair Özgür Çelik said, "A scheme has been set up. Slander and get away."

"HE WANTS TO BENEFIT FROM THE SLANDER-AND-SAVE SYSTEM"

Çelik's statements are as follows:

"Why was this indictment prepared? It stems from the statements of two people. Two separate people go and give statements to the prosecutor's office, and after their statements, an investigation was launched into the Istanbul Congress. So, who are these people? I don't want to mention one of them by name; he's a social media troll. He's someone who's been sharing baseless rumors about CHP municipalities and CHP politicians on social media for months. The summary of this person's statements, which I won't mention, is this: "As far as I hear, as far as I know, this happened," completely vague statements, statements consisting entirely of gossip. Let's get to the second person. Who is this second person? Someone named Veli Gümüş. He was detained as part of these 300-day operations, a 50-year-old indictment was issued against him, and within this 300-day period, as I always say, "a system was established. Thinking he could get out of prison by taking advantage of this "slander and get away" system, he gave a statement of effective remorse with completely false and slanderous statements, and this indictment has now been prepared based on his statements. So, what does Veli Gümüş say? He says, "I was a provincial delegate at the Istanbul Congress, I was offered a benefit." Who was this Veli Gümüş? Look. Two lists competed at the Istanbul Congress. The white list is Özgür Çelik's list, the red list is Cemal Canpolat's list. Do you know who Veli Gümüş is? Of course, we're talking about competition within the party; at the end of the day, they're all CHP lists. The person who said "I was offered a benefit" is the 18th-ranked candidate for executive board member on Mr. Cemal Canpolat's list, the person I'm competing with at the Istanbul Congress. The person who said "I was offered a benefit" is the 18th-ranked candidate for board member on Cemal Canpolat's list, the person I'm competing with. If an investigation is launched based on these statements, on the statements of someone on the rival list, wouldn't the following pave the way for something like this in Türkiye? Political parties are competing with each other on their lists, sports clubs are competing with each other on their lists, civil society organizations are competing with each other on their lists... So, when the people on the losing lists, driven by the greed and anger of their defeat, go and say, "I was offered a benefit," will an investigation be launched? And it's not just the greed and anger of their defeat, it's someone who has a 50-year indictment against him, whose trial hasn't even begun yet, who wants to take advantage of the "slander and get out of here" scheme. That's the first dimension.

"I DON'T HAVE A SINGLE VOICE"

"Secondly, there's a voice recording being mentioned. 'There was a voice recording. In this voice recording, several people made speeches regarding the Istanbul Congress.' There's not a single word of my voice in this voice recording. In this voice recording... For example, they summoned İnan Güney for a statement, he hadn't even been arrested yet. They mounted İnan Güney's photograph onto the video recording, and there's not a single word of İnan Güney's voice recording in it. The prosecutor who took his statement said to him, 'Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry, we summoned you here too. Your voice isn't in the voice recording, but your photograph was on it, so we had to summon you.' In other words, the Beyoğlu Mayor was summoned for questioning because the photograph was mounted."