VIDEO: Footage shows moments preceding kick by PM’s adviser to protester in Soma

ISTANBUL

Footage has been released by Turkish broadcaster A Haber showing the tense moments in disaster-struck Soma on the day Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited the town, immediately prior to adviser Yusuf Yerkel’s attack against a mourner.

The footage shows the protester kicking an official car which was carrying Erdoğan’s bodyguards. A security man first ran after the protester before special forces tackled the man. At that moment, Yerkel appeared and ran at the protester, kicking him three or four times.



Daily Radikal reported on May 19 that Yerkel obtained a medical report allowing him to miss work for seven days due to injuries sustained to his leg in the process of kicking the mourner. In the medical examination, Yerkel reportedly said the pain in his knee emerged because he fell.

An investigation is set to be opened into the doctor who issued the medical report, the general secretary of the Turkish Doctors’ Union (TTB) has said.