Is Metin Gürcan a Spy? Who Is Next?

Spy stories have always attracted interest. Order, intrigue, lies, mystery…

My spy is good; someone else’s is bad. That is the basic rule. When you read developments through this rule, the existence of those spying on behalf of your country, helped by the mystery the word “spy” carries, will flatter your patriotic feelings and please you. Someone else’s spy, on the other hand, will stir your anger, and the first word to fall from your lips will be “traitor”.

Espionage is one of the easiest crimes to allege but the hardest to prove, perhaps the very hardest.

So what kind of motivation would a citizen of the Republic of Türkiye need to spy against his own country? Would a person known to the public, who feels no need to hide himself, that is, his identity, spy against his own country?

To spy against his own country, a person must either hate his country, expect material gain, or live in fear that threatens his safety.

Now to the Metin Gürcan affair.

Our country is struggling with waves of economic crisis. At the same time, we are trying to work out what the US build-up of war weapons, vehicles and equipment inside Greece, very close to our border, means. Developments in Syria are getting more complicated every day, and this while the TSK has massed a significant share of its strength on the south-eastern border. On top of that come the social fractures caused by the refugees who have flooded into the country, the criminal developments accompanying racist rhetoric and the early election debates that are often voiced these days.

We have pushed all of this aside. We are floundering in the debate over the arrest of retired soldier Metin Gürcan, one of the founding members of the DEVA Party, and whether he is a spy.

Metin Gürcan is a soldier who served in the TSK between 1998 and 2015. After leaving the military, he carried out academic work, provided consultancy services and appeared on debate programmes on many TV channels labelled as a military expert. We do not know the details of the act that led to his detention and then arrest on an espionage-related charge. Accusations that Gürcan spied are being made only on the basis of images and information published in pro-government media.

Frankly, at this stage it is pointless to enter into a legal discussion about the incident, since we do not know all the information and documents that are the subject of the accusation. But here we should turn our attention not so much to the personal dimension of the accusation against Metin Gürcan as to issues that concern the whole of society.

In an investigation conducted in secret, the publication in the media, from the moment of detention, of certain information and images that only the prosecution should know is an outright scandal. An investigation should be opened against those who spread the information and images, and the prosecutor from whose file information was leaked should also be investigated. Of course, it is clear that, as in many similar cases over the years, the expected legal procedure will not be followed in this incident either. We saw the same scenes in the Ergenekon, Sledgehammer and 15 July trials. The main reason for this situation, contrary to law and social ethics, is the politicisation of law, that is, the law mechanism falling entirely under the control of political authorities. Metin Gürcan’s status as a founding member of the DEVA Party, founded by some politicians who left the AKP, already points to a political dimension of the investigation.

There is no doubt that Gürcan’s service in the Special Forces Command during his time in the TSK was also a factor in his becoming the target of espionage accusations. But it seems that the most important reason is that the button has been pressed to wear down the parties that will evidently take votes from the AKP in the upcoming general election.

Frankly, I think an air of intimidation prevails in the DEVA Party’s approach to the espionage allegations against Gürcan, one of its founders. The party is carefully and attentively trying to see and present the matter as a criminal process reduced to the name of Metin Gürcan. It is looking for a way to get through the process with the least political damage. And to keep the party from being hurt, they have already written off one of their founding members. This attitude of the DEVA Party will of course not be appreciated by any camp, least of all by AKP circles. However democratic and accommodating an attitude they adopt, through the name of Metin Gürcan the DEVA Party will be portrayed as one of the centres of espionage and treason against the state.

For at this point the government and its supporting media will strive to discredit the entire opposition in the eyes of the people, presenting it as an alliance of the interest-rate lobby, enemies of Türkiye, the PKK, FETÖ, the CHP, the HDP, the İYİ Party, DEVA, the Future Party and so on, gathered around a single centre (foreign powers), labelling it a “treason network” and portraying this alliance as the mother of all evils. The fact that AKP media have tied even this latest criminal process to the spool of Gürcan–FETÖ cooperation, despite Metin Gürcan’s evident negative stance towards the Gülen movement during the 15 July process, clearly reveals the government’s intention.

It is very sad that the opposition parties have fallen into the rhetorical trap imposed on the public by Erdoğan that “the PKK, FETÖ, foreign powers and all opponents” are a single organisation of enemies of state and nation supporting one another. The Metin Gürcan incident also served as a litmus test in revealing this truth plainly. Sadly, although this truth is plain, the opposition parties do not refrain from playing the three monkeys.

There is one more issue.

From the day he was detained, Metin Gürcan faced a “serves him right” attitude both from the ruling camp he opposes because of his identity as a politician and from certain circles belonging to the Gülen movement because of the stance he took after 15 July. Neither the “spy, traitor” rhetoric of the pool media nor the “good riddance” approach of the movement’s media and some social media accounts is fair or right.

It does not matter who the person at the centre of the espionage charge is. It could have been someone else instead of Metin Gürcan. There is a serious use of the “legal stick” here. This stick, which yesterday broke the heads of many people, is today coming down on Metin Gürcan’s head. This “espionage” move, evidently part of the government’s policy of intimidating all its opponents, looks set to continue.

It must not be forgotten that for the last few years the common consolation of those imprisoned or convicted on charges such as “attempting to overthrow the government, political and military espionage, membership of a terrorist organisation” has always been the same: “There is nothing in my file!”

We do not know who will be next tomorrow. I suspect everyone has a guess about this “turn”. And no one is predicting that their own turn might come.