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SEDAT PEKER, the man at the center of one of Turkey’s biggest political scandals in many years, has made an unlikely fame on YouTube. He curses her words, perhaps from too many Botox injections, wears an unbuttoned shirt, and sits behind a desk adorned with rosaries, pages of notes and an empty lantern. Over the past month, however, convicted gangster Mr Peker has had millions of Turks glued to their screens as he settled scores with the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogans.
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His allegations, which are not proven, are explosive. In a series of videos, Mr Peker accused the son of Mr Erdogans, a former prime minister of drug trafficking and a ruling party MP, of being involved in the death of a young woman. He claims to have beaten up another politician for insulting the president and takes credit for an attack on the offices of one of the country’s biggest newspapers. He also claims that the country’s interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, offered him police protection.
The seven videos have been viewed at least 55 million times. Others seem to be on their way. Opposition politicians and even some members of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party have called for an investigation. What the allegations show, said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition party, is that the Mafia has become the partner of the governing coalition. If even a thousandth of those claims are true, it is a disaster, said AK heavyweight Cemil Cicek.
Mr Soylu, meanwhile, denies the allegations. He rejected calls for his resignation, demanded that Mr Peker be charged with libel and challenged him to return home. He also called the allegations part of an international operation and accused America and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of trying to overthrow the Turkish government. Mr Peker, who fled Turkey two years ago, is believed to be living in the United Arab Emirates.
Mr. Soylu did not help his cause. Late on May 24, a mob of supporters stormed the minister in front of a television station, breaking the curfew rules Mr. Soylu had personally signed into law. He thanked them warmly.
The scandal rekindled memories of the 1990s, when the state regularly joined forces with criminal groups to prey on opponents, from journalists to Kurdish leaders. Scores were killed. Some of those disreputable characters have now resurfaced, in part thanks to an amnesty last year.
Until recently, Mr. Peker was in the good graces of the government. The gangster, who served time for running a crime syndicate, extorting and kidnapping, met Mr Erdogan on at least one occasion, held rallies in his favor and won the businessman award the most benevolent in Turkey. When a group of academics wrote a letter criticizing a government offensive against Kurdish insurgents, Mr Peker vowed to shower in their blood. He fell out of favor, he says, when Mr Erdogans’ son-in-law turned on him.
The videos also embarrass the Turkish media and the judiciary, which no longer dare to look into high-level corruption or investigate senior officials, let alone members of Mr Erdogans’ family. A reporter from the Turkish state news agency who asked a minister a specific question about Mr Pekers’ allegations lost his job the next day. The biggest corruption scandal of the Erdogan era was largely the work of bureaucrats loyal to a religious sect, who unearthed evidence of corruption and money laundering by government ministers. Today, the task of holding the powerful to account seems to belong to a Mafioso.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the title “Les intouchables”
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