Engineers Confirm Authenticity Of Voice Recording Between PM, Son

While circles close to the government argue over whether a recently leaked voice recording -- in which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his son Bilal Erdoğan allegedly discuss how to hide huge sums of cash on Dec. 17 of last year -- is fabricated, engineers say the recording is definitely authentic.
Turkey was shaken on Monday evening by the leak of a voice recording that allegedly took place between Erdoğan and his son. In the recording, Prime Minister Erdoğan briefs his son Bilal about a police raid and asks him to “zero” the amount (at least $1 billion cash) stashed at five houses at the beginning of the phone conversation. The authenticity of the recordings has not been verified. The conversation allegedly took place on Dec. 17, 2013, the day when police raided a number of venues as part of a corruption investigation that has implicated the sons of three Turkish ministers, businessmen and the chief of the state bank.
Recording engineers who have examined this recording believe it is authentic. Posting on his Twitter account on Monday evening, Attila Özdemiroğlu, a musician and recording engineer who was once the president of the Musical Work Owners' Society of Turkey (MESAM), tweeted that this recoding has not been spliced together. Özdemiroğlu stated that it is very easy to tell a spliced conversation as the background sound changes, adding: “I re-examined the recording; there is no change in the background sound.”
Another recording engineer, Erdem Helvacıoğlu, also released a statement on the recording that was made public on Monday evening, saying: “I have listened to the recording again and again. This recording is definitely authentic. As a recording engineer with a Ph.D., you can trust me.”
A recording engineer, Ali Büyük, wrote on his social media account on Tuesday that the recording is not spliced. He stated: “The recording is not spliced. You can test this recording via an ordinary plug-in analyzer.”
However, in an effort to disprove the authenticity of the recording, some circles said these calls "could not have been made" on the day the phone conversations allegedly took place given that Erdoğan was in Konya on Dec. 17 to attend an inauguration ceremony. Yet, the Republican People's Party (CHP), after matching the specific times when the phone calls were allegedly made and the sequence of events of Erdoğan's visit to Konya, said it was possible for him to have made the calls. CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said on Tuesday the voice recording between Erdoğan and his son is not a spliced conversation, responding to the controversy over the authenticity of the voice recording.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation into the matter. The investigation will focus on ascertaining whether the recordings are authentic and whether they were obtained through legal means, according to news reports.
Kılıçdaroğlu commented on the discussions over whether the recording in question was fabricated, saying: "This voice recording cannot be a spliced conversation. The prime minister says [in the recording] he is also under surveillance. There must be visuals that show the money transfers, and will be revealed soon."
During an emergency meeting of the CHP Central Executive Board (MYK) late on Monday, CHP members discussed the controversial voice recording in which Erdoğan seems to be warning his son Bilal about cash stashed at several houses.
The Prime Ministry released a strongly worded statement late on Monday, claiming that the voice recording is spliced and "completely false." The Prime Ministry vowed in the statement to sue those who orchestrated this "dirty plot."
The CHP further called on Erdoğan to resign following what they said was a "scandal" and said the government has lost its legitimacy from "this hour" and that Turkey cannot move forward with this "dirt."
Meanwhile, the recording between Erdoğan and his son, uploaded to You Tube on Monday evening, has been viewed by over 2 million people so far. (Cihan/Today’s Zaman)