Istanbul, Turkey – Hundreds of thousands of Turks have tuned on this month to the YouTube channel of convicted Turkish mob boss Sedat Peker together with his movies gripping the nation and rattling the federal government.
In a sequence of movies, apparently made in exile, Peker made a sequence of untamed and unsubstantiated allegations in opposition to a number of outstanding people – together with main figures in Turkey’s ruling Justice and Improvement Social gathering (AK Social gathering) – starting from homicide to rape, drug smuggling, corruption, and the position of organised crime in political machinations and violence.
All of the allegations have been vehemently denied by these accused.
The eight movies have had greater than 60 million views and Peker’s allegations have reached ever nearer to the guts of presidency.
They’ve additionally raised contemporary questions on alleged ties between the state and organised crime, which many had believed have been largely consigned to among the darkest intervals in Turkey’s historical past.
Peker’s allegations
Peker, 49, rose to prominence within the Nineteen Nineties as a gangster infamous for extortion and violence, who, like many main Turkish mafia figures, has espoused far-right Turkish nationalist views.
He was in jail from 2005 to 2014 for a variety of prices, together with forming and main a legal organisation.
After his launch, Peker grew to become a fervent supporter of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
He organised rallies for Erdogan’s AK Social gathering at a time when the president was more and more embracing Turkish nationalism and the worldview of the far-right Nationalist Motion Social gathering (MHP), whose help the AK Social gathering now depends upon for its parliamentary majority.
Peker additionally threatened critics of the federal government and mentioned he would “bathe” within the blood of lecturers who had signed a petition in 2016 calling for an finish to preventing between the safety forces and the Kurdistan Employees Social gathering (PKK) in southeast Turkish cities.
But, he went on to win main enterprise and philanthropy awards.
Peker mentioned he left Turkey in 2020 to keep away from prosecution and, after reportedly spending time in Japanese Europe, now claims to be dwelling within the UAE.
The chief public prosecutor’s workplace in Ankara issued a brand new arrest warrant for Peker on Wednesday.
He accused the Turkish police of mistreating his spouse and daughters in a raid on the household dwelling final month and commenced posting the movies on Could 2.
Peker has broadcast from what’s purportedly a resort in Dubai. Usually sporting an open-necked shirt displaying a medallion, Peker is garrulous, desirous to drop references to philosophers and writers, and fast to laughter and menacing turns.
He boasted in a single video that his enemies “will probably be defeated by a tripod and a cellphone digital camera”.
Whereas he typically consulted notes as he spoke, he has not produced documentary proof to again up any of his claims thus far.
Among the many most critical allegations is that Mehmet Agar, a former inside minister, was, within the Nineteen Nineties, behind a sequence of political killings – together with of two famend journalists – in addition to newer drug trafficking and the unlawful buying of a marina in an upmarket Aegean resort.
Peker additionally accused the previous minister’s son Tolga Agar, a present AK Social gathering parliamentarian, of involvement within the rape and suspicious demise of a Kazakh journalist.
Mehmet termed the allegations “all lies” and welcomed an investigation.
“Neither I nor my son has something to do with something unlawful or immoral,” he mentioned.
Tolga, rejecting the “slander”, mentioned he didn’t know the journalist in query, that the demise had been investigated and the case closed.
Peker additionally claimed that Erkan Yilidirm, son of former prime minister Binali Yildirim, went to Venezuela to arrange a drug-smuggling route.
Binali mentioned the allegations are “completely slander, we strongly reject them” and that his son went to Venezuela to offer COVID take a look at kits and masks.
Turkey’s highly effective inside minister, Suleyman Soylu, extensively touted as a number one AK Social gathering determine to ultimately succeed Erdogan, has turn out to be Peker’s principal goal.
Peker claimed to have had had shut ties to Soylu, who allegedly offered him with police safety and tipped him off about an investigation into his actions. Peker additionally claimed that Soylu sought his assist to additional his early political profession and in an influence battle in opposition to a rival AK Social gathering clique led by Erdogan’s son-in-law, the previous finance minister Berat Albayrak.
Soylu known as the allegations “disgusting lies” and mentioned he was being focused due to his combat in opposition to organised crime and “terror”.
Peker has not levelled any accusations in opposition to Erdogan, whom he has referred to in respectful phrases.
The Turkish president commented on the allegations for the primary time on Wednesday, saying Peker’s claims have been a plot in opposition to Turkey.
“Nobody ought to doubt that we’ll disrupt this devious operation,” Erdogan mentioned in an deal with to AK Social gathering members. “We pursue members of legal gangs wherever on the earth they flee to.”
Echoes of previous scandals
Whereas the federal government might have hoped the furore round Peker’s claims would shortly die down, his movies have gained higher audiences.
Galip Dalay, a fellow with the German Institute for Worldwide and Safety Affairs and at Brookings Doha Heart, informed Al Jazeera that, in addition to the character of the claims, the movies have had such a powerful affect as a result of Peker has proven a expertise for drama and he has implicated himself in among the allegations – together with a declare that he organized a 2015 assault on the places of work of Hurriyet newspaper on the behest of an unnamed AK Social gathering politician.
“Peker doesn’t declare to be clear within the sequence of purported crimes he talks about … this will increase his credibility within the public eye,” Dalay mentioned.
Ryan Gingeras, a professor on the Naval Postgraduate College and the creator of a e book on organised crime in Turkey, informed Al Jazeera that the allegations are resonating after years of declining belief in Turkish establishments – together with the overwhelmingly pro-government media, which has largely ignored the scandal till latest days.
“I feel it sort of exemplifies the disaster of confidence within the nation, within the sense that right here you may have this man who’s spilling ‘fact’ in a medium that folks usually belief over different media,” he mentioned.
However Merve Sebnem Oruc, a columnist at Each day Sabah newspaper, mentioned that curiosity within the story might have surged initially as a result of individuals have been craving some pleasure whereas caught at dwelling in the course of the pandemic, and in addition as a result of opposition politicians and opposition media have shared Peker’s allegations uncritically.
“Folks have been inspired to consider what he mentioned with out questioning it,” Oruc informed Al Jazeera. “However the background of this shady man exhibits he can’t be trusted.”
Peker’s claims have additionally drawn comparisons to the Susurluk scandal of the Nineteen Nineties during which a police chief and a wished mafia hitman have been killed and a Turkish lawmaker injured in a automobile accident.
A subsequent parliamentary inquiry in 1998 detailed “deep state” connections between organised crime, heroin smuggling, and political assassinations carried out in collaboration with the Turkish safety forces from the Nineteen Seventies to the Nineteen Nineties.
The scandal later led to prosecutions – together with of Mehmet in 2011, who served one 12 months of a five-year sentence for establishing a legal organisation.
Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish analysis programme on the Washington Institute for Close to East Coverage, informed Al Jazeera that a part of the AK Social gathering’s attraction when it was first elected in 2002 was all the way down to its clear picture and the promise of an finish to Turkey’s corrupt and murky politics.
He mentioned that many now consider “that sort of corruption has probably not disappeared, it’s nonetheless there, it was simply swept below the carpet” and that the scandal may expose AK Social gathering rule as “one that’s sort of like Susurluk – all this self-enrichment and ties to the underworld hidden behind a façade of ideology”.
On Wednesday, the AK Social gathering and the MHP voted down an opposition parliamentary movement calling for a probe, and Turkish prosecutors have but to research Peker’s claims.
Gingeras mentioned that the allegations might solely resonate with individuals who already oppose the federal government.
“I draw related classes from earlier internet-driven scandals, the place individuals who latched on to it have been already cynical about Erdogan, and it simply type of confirmed that bias,” he mentioned.
Peker has, in the meantime, promised to debate the president intimately in his subsequent video.
Extra reporting by Umut Uras.