Criminal complaint over the “kidnapping at gunpoint scandal” in the AKP

Saruhanlı Municipality Rural Services Director, Suat Diktaş, alleges that he was kidnapped at gunpoint and interrogated by Yunusemre Mayor Mehmet Çerçi and Saruhanlı Mayor Hüseyin Yaralı, both AKP members. With the allegations receiving coverage in the national press, CHP Manisa MP Tur Yıldız Biçer made a press statement in front of Manisa Judicial Complex and filed a criminal complaint about mayors Çerçi and Yaralı. Biçer was accompanied by CHP Şehzadeler Sub-Province Chair Zerrin İşnel, CHP Yunusemre Sub-Province Chair Serdar Bozyaka, CHP Saruhanlı Sub-Province Chair Zeki Bilgin and a group of party members during the statement she made prior to submitting her criminal complaint petition. Biçer, asserting that, in terms of the allegations that have come to public attention, the two AK Party mayors had committed offences under the Turkish Penal Code, spoke as follows:

“From what has been alleged, it has been reported in the press that the Yunusemre and Saruhanlı mayors engaged in various acts virtually all of which constitute offences under the Turkish Penal Code in the form of forcing a person who had previously served as a deputy mayor and director at Saruhanlı Municipality into a car with the armed men accompanying them, abducting him to building in an industrial zone, subjecting him to interrogation there such that this lasted about two hours, seizing his phone and depriving him of his liberty. We have demanded the conducting of the necessary prosecution against Mehmet Çerçi and Hüseyin Yaralı as they have committed the offences against public safety and peace and its functioning of intentional wounding, harassment, blackmail, duress, deprivation of personal liberty, defamation, aggravated robbery, abuse of position, abuse of trust and using publicly owned tools and equipment in the commission of an offence.”

CALL TO INTERIOR MINISTER SOYLU

Parliamentarian Biçer, noting yesterday that the said allegations have also made their way onto Parliament’s agenda, indicated that she had submitted a written question to Parliament seeking a reply from Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu. Biçer said, “We expect Soylu to reply to this written question, because you know he is the competent person in this matter in terms both of the way has previously been portrayed in the press and the office he holds. Just as he removed a CHP mayor from office based on a two-line report penned by an inspector with reference to a glass balcony, and if he wields such power, we also expect him to use this power and authority over serving AKP mayors and remove them from office and to perform his duty. He forever makes uncalled for comments that overstep his authority about our General Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Will Soylu, who says, ‘You’re finished’ with reference to our general chair, be capable of saying, ‘I will do what is called for. I will do my duty’ with regard to these serious allegations that have been picked up by the press?”

MP Biçer submitted the criminal complaint petition she was holding to Manisa Republic Chief Prosecution following the statement.