Journalism taken to court in Turkey, again

Should a prosecutor watch a television show into which a case has been opened, including as "evidence" a recording of the show?  

According to the prosecutor who opened a case into Hürriyet editor-in-chief Sedat Ergin over "insulting the president," there was no need to watch the show. The prosecutor filed the indictment based on a story posted on the Hürriyet website headlined: "Da?l?ca statement from Erdo?an: If 400 deputies had been won, this would not have happened." He claimed that this headline was written "despite the fact that President Erdo?an did not say this, and not a word was spoken that could have been interpreted like this."  

How did the prosecutor reach this opinion? He does not write it openly but the "evidence" he listed in the indictment gives us an idea: "a) The lawsuit petition. b) Printouts of the related website attached to the petition." The original recording of the A Haber-ATV joint broadcast on Sept. 6, 2015, on which Erdo?an was speaking, is not even including among the evidence. Apparently the prosecutor considered it sufficient to simply read the petition submitted by Erdo?an's lawyers.

When objections were made to the story and when, due to this story, physical attacks were organized targeting the Hürriyet headquarters, I watched the program again and wrote about it in this column. In the interview, the question about the Justice and Development Party (AKP) winning "400 deputies" came right after Erdo?an's evaluation of the terror attack at Da?l?ca. The last two sentences of Erdo?an's reply were as follows: "By executing this terrorism, they are benefiting from this situation. But if a political party had won 400 deputies in the election, or if it had won enough to write a new constitution, the situation...