Probe launched against gang leader for threatening CHP chief

ANKARA

A senior official from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has informed that a probe has been launched against Alaattin Çakıcı, a convicted mafia leader, for threatening the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

“The office of the prosecutor has launched the necessary investigation. That’s the information I got from the officials,” Bülent Turan, the deputy parliamentary group leader of the AKP told reporters on Nov. 19.

“Insults and threats are not acceptable regardless to whom they are made and by whom they are voiced. Necessary procedures in line with the law should be carried out. Law is the AK Party’s unchangeable principle,” he said.

Turan’s statement came a day after Kılıçdaroğlu filed a lawsuit against Çakıcı for threatening and insulting him in an open letter he posted on Twitter. The CHP officials have criticized the ruling party for remaining silent on the threats against a political party leader.

“It has become clear that the third partner of the People’s Alliance is the mafia. The ‘Alliance of the Mafian People’ is now an ‘alliance of evil,’” according to a statement.

The People’s Alliance is composed of the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Çakıcı, who was released from the prison this summer benefiting from a partial amnesty law after being pushed by the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), harshly criticized and threatened Kılıçdaroğlu, who attacked against the MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli at his parliamentary group meeting on Nov. 17.

In the meantime, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli has lent support to Çakıcı in a written statement on Nov 18. Bahçeli stressed that he and Çakıcı have a “common cause” and said he is “son of an ‘Ülkücü’” (ultra-nationalist) who loves his country and nation.

“My response to Kılıçdaroğlu and his collaborators who are trying to create a perception in the eyes of the public is, one, Alaatin Çakıcı is the son of an Ülkücü martyr, two, Alaatin Çakıcı is an Ülkücü who loves his country and nation, and three, Alaattin Çakıcı is my comrade,” he stated.

“To call ülkücü Alaattin Çakıcı a wannabe mafia and to accuse him of the dark side of the underworld is dishonesty. Dishonesty and disgrace,” Bahçeli said.

Çakıcı “paid the price of the crimes which he was blamed for by spending time in prison for several years,” he added.

The MHPs leader suggested that Kılıçdaroğlu has sympathy for jailed philanthropist Osman Kavala and former co-chair of People’s Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş. Bahçeli also claimed that Kılıçdaroğlu is “close to terrorists” of the illegal PKK group.

Meanwhile, Çakıcı has responded to the CHP leader with yet another threat. “Rather than speaking like a woman, get me killed if you have the guts,” Çakıcı said on Nov. 18 in a letter.

In the meantime, the European Parliament (EP) Turkey Rapporteur Nacho Sanchez Amor has also lent his support to Kılıçdaroğlu.

“All my support for the CHP leader @kilicdarogluk in the face of recent execrable threats. This should spark the solidarity of all relevant political and institutional actors in #Turkey. Otherwise, silence speaks volumes,” he tweeted.