"We stand with our Interior Minister in his battle with criminal gangs, as well as with terrorist organizations. Turkey will thwart these plots and will bring organized crime bosses to Turkey to face justice."
On May 27 the Ankara Chief Prosecutors Office issued a warrant for the arrest of Sedat Peker.
What is remarkable is that Peker has not accused President Erdogan of any wrongdoing and always speaks of his "Brother Tayyip". Some observers suspect that he is in fact targeting close associates of the Turkish President, who have become quite strong, helping in this way Erdogan to get rid of them and end their political career.
No matter what Peker's real aims are, his videos confirm the suspicion that a deep state continues to exist in Turkey and indicates that AKP continues to use the underworld to further its aims against its opponents.
Peker said that in 2015, at the request of an AKP deputy, he sent his men to attack the Hurriyet newspaper to make it stop criticizing Erdogan. After this attack, Hurriyet's boss sold the paper to a pro-government media group.
Fikri Saglar, of the main opposition CHP party, says the Peker affair is part of a much bigger problem. "The government never managed to distance itself from the mafia [...] Today, it is cozying up the government. Peker's videos show it is abundantly clear that the government and the mafia are close."
Prominent Turkish journalist Murat Yetin in an interview stressed. "It is impossible for the government to remain silent over the video releases of Peker, as a boundary has been passed."
Former head of the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission Ayhan Sefer Ustun said: "Turkey should launch a countrywide campaign against the deep state and a widespread mafia structure that reached out to the inner circles of the state."
( With inputs from ANI )
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