Eylem Sonbahar
Journalist Barış Pehlivan, who was detained along with Seda Selek and Serhan Asker, testified before the prosecutor, stating that his conversations with the expert witness in question were purely for news-gathering purposes. "The discussions I had regarding Mr. Satılmış were conducted to obtain information for a news report. There was no intention to influence his expert analysis in any way," Pehlivan said.
Pehlivan and television host Seda Selek were detained in Istanbul, while Halk TV's responsible editor Serhan Asker was taken into custody in Ankara. The investigation was launched after a broadcast aired a conversation between Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and an expert witness whose name İmamoğlu had publicly revealed. The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office charged the journalists with "recording private conversations" and "attempting to influence an expert witness or a witness."
After being taken to the Istanbul Police Department on Vatan Avenue, Pehlivan and Selek were transferred to Çağlayan Courthouse for further legal proceedings.
In his testimony, Pehlivan stated that he was at Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) headquarters on the day of the incident to cover İmamoğlu’s press conference. "While I was there, I even asked the mayor about his potential presidential candidacy. After the press conference, while I was in the municipal garden, I acted on journalistic instinct and tried to find the phone number of the person mentioned in the briefing to ask for his response to the allegations," he explained. Pehlivan then called the expert witness, introduced himself, and posed questions about the claims made against him.
Pehlivan said he conducted the call while accompanied by Halk TV executive Kürşat Oğuz. "When I started speaking, my phone was on speaker mode. The reason for this was to allow Kürşat Bey, my channel manager, to hear the conversation and take notes simultaneously," he stated. He added that he noticed Oğuz recording the conversation. "His intention was to ensure we could accurately convey the expert’s statements word for word. However, I later learned that this recording was broadcast on Halk TV. I was unaware that it would be aired live. Moreover, when the recording was made, I had no intention of publishing the audio. I do not know if Kürşat Bey sent the recording to someone else for broadcasting or if he directly arranged for it to be aired live."
Emphasizing that Oğuz had acted with journalistic intent, Pehlivan reiterated, "My conversation with Mr. Satılmış was entirely a product of journalistic reflexes and was conducted solely to gather news. At no point was there any attempt to influence his expert testimony. In my questions, I explicitly stated that I was reaching out as a journalist. Likewise, I am certain that our editor-in-chief had the same journalistic intent when he broadcasted the expert’s statements on Halk TV. I reject all the accusations against me," he concluded.
