Turkish Prosecutor passes off Hatay Arms smuggling truck case in protest.

Turkish Prosecutor passes off Hatay Arms smuggling truck case in protest.(TZ).

The prosecutor whose request to search an aid truck in Hatay last week was blocked has handed over the case to another prosecutor in protest of the intervention in his investigation.

According to a report in the Taraf daily on Sunday, public prosecutor Özcan Şişman applied to the chief public prosecutor's office to be taken off the case after his repeated requests to search a truck that was reportedly carrying weapons and ammunition to Syria were denied by gendarmerie and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) officers who were accompanying the truck.

His request was turned down on the grounds that the truck's mission was a “state secret.”

New Interior Minister Efkan Ala told reporters on Thursday after making an oath in Parliament that officially inaugurated him into his new position that the truck had been carrying aid to Turkmen in Syria and asked everyone to mind their own business.

Şişman, who had acted in accordance with Article 10 of the Counterterrorism Law (TMK) in his move to search the truck, filed an official complaint when security and intelligence forces refused his orders.

In accordance with his complaint, an investigation was launched into public officials who had not complied.In his complaint, Şişman said that although he had insisted on searching the truck, the Interior Ministry intervened and allowed the truck to continue its journey.

Şişman also stated that his call to the chief prosecutor in Hatay did not help him conduct his search.According to Taraf, Şişman told the chief prosecutor that he does not want to work with the police officers and MİT agents who refused his orders on Jan 1.

His request was approved, but the prosecutor who will replace Şişman and be responsible for investigations in the province of Hatay has not yet been announced.

Taraf also reported that the police officers who stopped the truck in the first place have been transferred to other positions within the police force.

Additionally, the police have had to transfer the investigation to the gendarmerie as the location where the truck was stopped is reportedly outside of city limits.

Hatay Governor Celalettin Lekesiz, who was informed of the incident, reportedly instructed the gendarmerie not to search the truck.

Meanwhile, the Turkmen in Syria have rejected the claim by Minister Ala that the truck was carrying aid for them. 

Syrian-Turkmen Assembly Vice Chairman Hussein al-Abdullah said on Saturday that no such trucks have come from Turkey and the Turkmen do not use the route on which the truck in question was stopped in Hatay. “We have never received aid or weapons from Turkey,” Abdullah stated. 

Vice Chairman Abdurrahman Mustafa also said that he has no information about an aid truck from Turkey and that all he knows about it he read in newspapers.Şişman remains in charge of the Reyhanlı investigation, the biggest terrorist attack in Turkish history and which claimed the lives of 52 people in Hatay in 2013.