US embassy cable - 03ANKARA1516

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 001516 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/11/2008 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PHUM, TU, OSCE 
SUBJECT: TURKISH CIVIC SOCIETY: VERDICT SUSPENDED IN CASE 
AGAINST ISLAMIC LEADER FETHULLAH GULEN 
 
(U) Classified by Polcouns John Kunstadter; reasons 1.5 (b,d). 
 
 
1. (U) An Ankara State Security Court (SSC) March 10 ruled 
unanimously to postpone a verdict in the trial in absentia of 
controversial Islamic philosopher Fetullah Gulen.  Gulen, 
indicted in 2000, faced five to 10 years imprisonment under 
the Anti-Terror Law on charges of establishing an illegal 
organization for the purpose of undermining the State and 
establishing Islamist rule.  Under the ruling, the case 
against Gulen will be formally closed if he does not commit 
another felony crime within five years.  If Gulen is charged 
with another crime during that period, the SSC could 
reactivate this case and issue a verdict. 
 
 
2. (C) Gulen attorney Hasan Gunaydin speculated that the SSC 
postponed the verdict because the evidence in the case was 
not strong enough to justify a conviction.  He told Emboffs 
that he and his colleagues are seeking a full acquittal in 
the case, and have filed an objection to the ruling.  If the 
SSC refuses to revise its ruling, Gunaydin said he will file 
an appeal.  He did not know whether Gulen, who now resides in 
the U.S., plans to return to Turkey as a result of the 
ruling. 
 
 
3. (C)  Gulen, much more militant when he began in the early 
1970's, is the spiritual leader of an Islamic movement that 
officially professes to be interested in ecumenical 
understanding but whose roots are intensely Islamic.  The 
movement works in the manner of other Islamic tarikats 
(brotherhoods) but is relatively more hierarchical and 
disciplined.  Gulen and his followers have contacts with, and 
have received public support from, a varied range of Turkish 
politicians, including former President Demirel and 
arch-secularist-nationalist former P.M. Ecevit.  Gulen has 
warm relations with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope 
John Paul II.  His followers have the reputation of being 
truer to their word in dealings with people of other faiths 
than their main rivals (Islamist former P.M. Necmettin 
Erbakan's Milli Gorus (National View) movement and some 
elements of the Nakshibendi tarikats, both of whom form the 
core of now-ruling AK Party), for whom lying in the service 
of their faith in dealings with non-Muslims is meritorious in 
Allah's sight ("sevap").  The Gulen movement's wide network 
of secondary schools, universities, media outlets, business 
associations, and other holdings in 35 countries was 
originally encouraged by the GOT, especially the MFA and 
intel services, but the Kemalist State, especially the 
Turkish military, defined the Gulenists as an Islamist threat 
in the wake of the military's 1997 "post-modern" coup against 
Erbakan's Islamist government. 
 
 
4. (C) Comment: Gulen's harassment by the State appears to us 
to be based on an unclear and arbitrarily-interpreted range 
of evidence, although in our experience the movement in 
Turkey has become secretive under the State's pressure, its 
representatives are cagier with us, and its goals are 
therefore more difficult to read.  In addition, we have 
experience that more militant Islamists have moved into some 
of the Gulen structures in Turkey.  Yet based on extensive 
and continuing contacts with Gulenists, we conclude that 
Gulen's approach is so gradualist, and his chief lieutenants 
are so wary of being tarred as militants, that the movement 
does not pose a clear and present danger to the State. 
PEARSON