The testimony of Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer Mustafa Özer was leaked by the Turkish daily Taraf on Wednesday, revealing the photojournalist's work as an intermediary between Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Özer was released in December after testifying before the İstanbul Specially Authorized Prosecutor Bilal Bayraktar for his alleged links to the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), a group which prosecutors say acts as a political umbrella organization that includes the PKK and other separatist groups.
Özer's remarks depict an extensive series of meetings with PKK officials which spanned a period of eight years and took the photojournalist to Iraq and various locations in Europe.
Özer reportedly contacted MİT shortly after he began work as a photographer for the AFP in 2003, when he began to travel to Turkey's southeastern provinces with journalists interested in reporting on the PKK. Özer claimed on Tuesday that his visits to PKK camps and meetings with PKK leaders led him to contact MİT and “volunteer my services without the expectation of pay,” telling the intelligence organization that he could collect information on the group's most wanted members and expand the agency's contacts within the militant group.
MİT allegedly agreed to have Özer pass along intelligence while on assignment with the AFP, a mission which saw the photojournalist make contact with a PKK official known as İsmet Kayhan, whose trust Özer worked to gain. Over a series of visits to PKK camps and meetings for the AFP, Özer worked to forward photographs and details of PKK meetings, as well as interview members of the militant organization such as Fehman Hüseyin, a senior member and author of many of the group's attacks on the Turkish military.
The photojournalist's remarks paint a portrait of MİT's intelligence capabilities which suggests that the group often had reliable information on the whereabouts of senior members of the PKK. Özer stated that “In the years of 2007-2009, it was known by MİT that [acting PKK commander] Murat Karayılan was residing in the village of Levje [near the Iraqi mountain of Kandil].”
Özer also stated that MİT provided financial and logistical support to facilitate a series of meetings in Europe between Özer, his PKK contact Kayhan, and several MİT agents, a opportunity which one MİT official allegedly told Özer had allowed MİT “to enter the center of the [PKK] in Europe.” Özer said that his role as middleman in the growing contact between the PKK and MİT in Europe was gradually phased out as MİT agents and Kayhan developed regular relations with each other.
Özer also stated that his work with MİT led him to identify thousands of mid-ranking members of the group through interviews and photographs, stating that he “compiled information regarding 1,000-1,500 individuals” during a single 2010 meeting of the PKK in Iraq following the start of a Turkish crackdown on the KCK during the previous year.
The KCK investigation started in December 2009, and a large number of journalists, Kurdish politicians and other state officials have been detained for their suspected links to the group.
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