Erdoğan sues Kılıçdaroğlu over ‘insult’

Erdoğan sues Kılıçdaroğlu over ‘insult’

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has filed a claim for compensation worth of 250,000 Turkish Liras against Republican People’s Party (CHP) chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for insulting him during his speech at a provincial heads meeting.

The complaint petition submitted by Erdoğan’s lawyer Hüseyin Aydın suggested the CHP leader’s remarks of accusing the president of staging a “civilian coup” are similar to the “discourse of FETÖ” and serves their “organizational targets.”

The complaint suggested that Kılıçdaroğlu and his party “embraced a campaign conducted by FETÖ leadership, which aims to display an image of bossism” both in Turkey and abroad.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s statement, in which he described Erdoğan as a “man of currency barons,” insults Erdoğan and contradicts with the principles he assumed during his political career, said the complaint.

Earlier, an Istanbul court ordered the CHP leader to pay an immaterial compensation of 142,000 Turkish Liras in a criminal complaint case filed by Erdoğan in a row over offshore accounts that Kılıçdaroğlu alleged the president and his relatives hold in the Isle of Man, a self-governing British Crown dependency in the Irish Sea between England and Ireland.

In July, Erdoğan filed a criminal complaint against Kılıçdaroğlu and 72 other lawmakers of the main opposition party for insulting him by sharing a cartoon on Twitter depicting Erdoğan as various animals to show support for four university students who were arrested this month for carrying it as a placard at their graduation ceremony.