A Mobster and Turkey's Arms Shipments to Jihadis
by Burak Bekdil • July 3rd
Erdoğan's government claimed the cargo was humanitarian aid to Turkoman locals in Syria but then filed criminal charges against the editors Cumhuriyet, for being members of a "terrorist organization," espionage and revealing state secrets.... The prosecution asked for life sentences for two Cumhuriyet editors. Since then, Can Dündar, then-editor-in-chief, has been living in Germany in exile.
At the beginning of May, Sedat Peker, a convicted Turkish mob boss and a fierce supporter of Erdoğan -- until now -- began posting videos on social media in which he made uncorroborated accusations of corruption, murder and drug-running against top politicians.
After weeks of silence, Erdoğan... ordered prosecutors and judges to investigate and establish that all of Peker's claims were lies and a smear campaign against his government. Who will trust the independence of a legal probe when the president has already ordered its verdict?
On January 19, 2014, the Turkish Gendarmerie command in southern Turkey searched three trucks heading for Syria. Accompanying the trucks were Turkish intelligence officers; the trucks had a bizarre cargo: In the first container, were 25-30 missiles or rockets and 10-15 crates loaded with ammunition; and in the second, 20-25 missiles or rockets, 20-25 crates of mortar rounds and anti-aircraft ammunition in five or six sacks. The crates had markings in the Cyrillic alphabet. One of the drivers testified that the cargo had been loaded onto the trucks from a foreign airplane at Ankara's Esenboğa Airport and that, "We carried similar loads several times before."
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