CHP chair to not testify in probe into leaked Baykal sex tape

ANKARA

DHA photo

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu will not testify as part of the investigation into a leaked sex tape apparently showing the party’s former leader Deniz Baykal, which led Baykal to resign, sources within the CHP have said.

The Bureau of Crimes against the Constitutional Order is leading the investigation into a 2010 tape showing Baykal in flagrante delicto. Sources from the Public Prosecutor’s Office told reporters that the CHP’s private secretary was summoned to request Kılıçdaroğlu to testify in the case as a “witness.”

The move reportedly followed Kılıçdaroğlu’s remarks on April 28 claiming that he had seen footage showing then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan watch Baykal’s tape. The CHP chair questioned why Erdoğan did not order the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) to reveal the plot at the time. 

“I saw him watch the tape. Those who made Erdoğan watch the tape recorded him as he did so. I don’t believe the ‘parallel structure’ was behind it,” Kılıçdaroğlu had said, in reference to followers of U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) alleges is conspiring to unseat the government.

“It is true that there was a plot against Mr. Baykal. Mr. Baykal knows who serviced that tape,” Kılıçdaroğlu also said, adding that if he were in Erdoğan’s place he would have dismissed those who made him watch the tape. 

The CHP head made similar remarks two years ago during a TV interview in which he claimed that Erdoğan was “lying scandalously.”

After news of the call for a testimony was reported in the media, sources from the CHP said Kılıçdaroğlu would not testify over the tape but declined to say whether he would provide a written account of his knowledge of the matter.

AKP Deputy Parliamentary Group Chair Bülent Turan criticized Kılıçdaroğlu’s decision, asking why he refused to give testimony if he does indeed want to uncover the truth.

“We are asking Kılıçdaroğlu, was he part of a plot to win his post as party chair? Is he refusing to testify because he was part of a plot?” Turan asked, describing Kılıçdaroğlu’s claim that Erdoğan ordered the plot as “slander.”


‘Turkey has no government’

Meanwhile, Kılıçdaroğlu addressed ongoing attacks on Turkey’s border province of Kilis, which has seen deadly shelling from within Syrian territory, during his weekly speech to CHP deputies on May 10. 

He touched on a recent newspaper posting that called on the government to take additional security measures in Kilis, which ended with the lines “Kilis is under attack! Our homeland is under attack!” He said Kilis locals had to resort to the advert in order to get themselves heard by the government. 

“Bombs and rockets are being dropped each day but there is no one there,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, stressing that unlike the government, the CHP has sent a delegation to the province. 

“Does this country not have a government? It really does not. If there was a government, we wouldn’t be going through these troubles,” he added.

“They don’t care about Kilis. They wouldn’t move a finger even if Kilis was destroyed to the ground,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, adding that up to 25 percent of locals had fled Kilis as “refugees,” at a time when the province has seen a huge influx of Syrian refugees.