The President, minute by minute: a timeline of the night of 15–16 July

Where was the President from the afternoon of 15 July to the morning of 16 July — at what time, and according to which source? We set out hour by hour the matters fixed by the documents in the case file and by open sources, together with the official narrative.

Friday, 15 July 2016

11:45 — In addition to the TC-ATA aircraft standing ready at İzmir Adnan Menderes Airport, two aircraft at Bodrum-Milas and one at Sabiha Gökçen, belonging to businessmen very close to Erdoğan, were made ready for Erdoğan to use if needed.
13:20 — On his previous holidays Erdoğan used to perform the Friday prayer at the mosque nearest to where he was staying; on Friday 15 July he did not come to the İçmeler Mosque for the Friday prayer.
14:30 — According to the official narrative, Major O.K. reported to MİT that there would be a coup. Erdoğan continued his holiday.
18:00 — According to the official narrative, the head of MİT, Hakan Fidan, came to the General Staff headquarters to talk about this report. Erdoğan continued his holiday.
18:55 — According to the official narrative, Hakan Fidan, while with Akar, called Muhsin Köse and asked, "if there were an attack, would you be prepared?" Erdoğan went on staying in Marmaris.
21:30 — One side of the Bosphorus Bridge was closed to traffic; in Ankara and İstanbul aircraft began to fly low. Erdoğan went on staying in Marmaris.
22:40 — The head of the Presidency's Security Affairs, Ramazan Bal, called the governors of İzmir, Aydın, Antalya and Muğla and gave a directive to send special-operations police to Marmaris against the assassination attempt to be made on Erdoğan. According to the statement of the protection officer Osman Özcan, the İzmir Special Operations were insistently ordered to be in Marmaris before 04:00 — yet at four o'clock Erdoğan would already have left Marmaris and would be preparing for a press conference at İstanbul Atatürk Airport.

Saturday, 16 July 2016

00:00 — The official helicopter (Sikorsky S-92) at the Okluk State Guesthouse moved to the airstrip of the Marmaris Palace Hotel.
00:04 — Erdoğan made a press statement in front of the villa where he was staying at the Turban Hotel; the statement was broadcast live from the Facebook page of the local journalist Temel Irmak.
00:24 — He spoke on CNN Türk, to which he connected from the villa by FaceTime.
00:33 — He spoke on A Haber, to which he connected from the villa by FaceTime.
00:44 — He spoke on NTV, to which he connected from the villa by FaceTime.
00:45 — Erdoğan's bodyguards, who came by road from Marmaris to Dalaman, checked the TC-ATA aircraft; this activity was later presented as "an assassination team raided Erdoğan's aircraft and could not find him."
00:50 — He spoke on TGRT Haber, to which he connected from the villa by FaceTime.
01:00 — Erdoğan left the villa in the official car, accompanied by bodyguards on motorcycles, and moved to the airstrip of the Marmaris Palace Hotel 1.5 km away; the camera footage shows the official car leaving with escorts at around this time.
01:15 — The official helicopter, switching off its identification information and flying low so as not to appear on radar, took off from the airstrip of the Marmaris Palace Hotel for Dalaman.
01:15 — According to the message records, Osman Kılıç (head of Hulusi Akar's private office) at the Akıncı Base sent a message — "the mission to take custody of Erdoğan is cancelled" — to Şükrü Seymen at İzmir/Çiğli; Seymen forwarded the message to Gökhan Şahin Sönmezateş.
01:30 — The official helicopter landed at Dalaman Airport.
01:43 — The TC-ATA aircraft took off from Dalaman for İstanbul with Erdoğan and those with him.
02:10 — According to the message records, Osman Kılıç sent Şükrü Seymen a message: "continue the mission to take custody of Erdoğan."
02:10 — The TC-ATA, while over Biga, began to wait; it waited in the air for about 50 minutes until the helicopters carrying the soldiers who had taken off from İzmir/Çiğli reached Marmaris.
02:20 — Three helicopters, which had been kept running for a while at Çiğli, took off for Marmaris.
03:00 — The soldiers' helicopters reached Marmaris.
03:00 — The TC-ATA, after waiting about 50 minutes over Biga, moved on to İstanbul.
03:20 — The soldiers charged with taking custody of Erdoğan got off the helicopters.
03:20 — The TC-ATA landed at İstanbul Atatürk Airport, next to the Air Force Academy said to be the coup plotters' headquarters; Erdoğan began to wait in a hangar. At that moment the fighter jets and helicopters in the skies over İstanbul did not intervene against Erdoğan.
03:20 — The presidential bodyguard Mehmet Çetin was shot in the back with a 9 mm pistol at the Turban Hotel and killed behind villa 1751. The bullets in the body were not removed; in the autopsy report it was made to appear as though there was a bullet wound in his left knee, and a 5.56 mm bullet fragment was sent for criminalistic examination as though it had been extracted from there.
03:35 — The soldiers began, in the villa area of the Turban Hotel, to search for the villa where Erdoğan was staying and to ask the tourists staying in the villas.
03:43 — The presidential bodyguards opened fire on the soldiers in front of villa 1782, 100 m from Erdoğan's villa and 25 m from the villa where Mehmet Çetin was killed; the soldiers answered with suppressive fire using 5.56 mm rifles.
03:49 — The soldiers placed a stun grenade beside villa 1782 for the bodyguards to surrender; so that the police bodyguard Duygu Yılmaz, who had surrendered outside, would not be harmed, one of the soldiers threw himself over her. Afterwards, fire opened from inside the villa was seen to sweep the area; the crime-scene investigation teams that arrived 4 hours later found no cartridge case in the area that had been fired upon, and it could not be determined who had opened fire.
03:55 — The soldiers asked the bodyguards Erdoğan's location; the bodyguards said he had left.
04:00 — The presidential bodyguard Burak Güzel said, "let me take you to where the President is staying," and took one of the soldiers to villa 1922, which the bodyguards had used for a meeting. Afterwards, this villa too was seen to be swept by fire opened from inside; the teams that arrived 4 hours later again found no cartridge case at the scene.
04:15 — The soldiers, having become convinced that Erdoğan was not in Marmaris, left the hotel.
04:16 — Erdoğan, who had come by official car from the hangar where he was waiting at İstanbul Atatürk Airport to the State Guesthouse, held a press conference before the cameras: "They bombed the place I had left; they probably could not get word that we had left."

The press statement, the live broadcasts, and the camera, flight and message records are fixed by documents. As the book's chronology sets out, alongside these material findings, some inferences as to by whom and with what motive an act was carried out are not established determinations but possibilities arrived at from the evidence as a whole, and should be read with this reservation.