Sedat Peker’s Accusations Show the Decay within the Turkish Regime
In recent weeks, infamous Turkish mafia leader Sedat Peker appeared in the UAE after fleeing the country. Peker opened Pandora’s box, posting videos on Youtube in which he frankly discussions crimes such as corruption, rape, and murders committed by Turkish officials along with other scandals, implicating President Erdogan, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, and many others. Peker, a member of the radical ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves, claims to reveal the perpetrators and planners of assassinations of Kurdish business people in the 1990s.
The Kurds have always known that the Turkish state was behind the hundreds of deaths targeting political activists and businesspeople in the 1990s. Many of those were assassinated in the daylight, including renowned Kurdish politician Vedat Aydin and former Kurdish MP Mehmet Sincar.
The government’s involvement with the mafia and what are known as “death squads” was a part of deep state operations against members of the pro-Kurdish People’s Labour Party (HEP) and one of its successors, the Democracy Party (DEP). Moreover, tens of Kurdish businesspeople were assassinated, including Savaş Buldan and his colleagues. These businessmen were accused of aiding the Kurdish rebels fighting for the rights of the Kurds, mainly the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The accusations from exiled Turkish mobster Sedat Peker that allege connections between Turkey’s ruling elite and organized crime reveal a steady decay in the credibility of the state to many Turks.
Peker, who released an eighth video on Sunday that accused the government of organising arms deliveries to extremists in Syria, has drawn the ire of high-ranking officials. This includes Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, former prime minister Binali Yildirim and more recently President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself.
After the release of his seventh video where Peker alleged a state connection to drug trafficking from Venezuela, Turkey Abroad spoke to Dr. Yektan Turkyilmaz, who said stories of state-mafia collusion in Turkey are not new, but Peker’s are at a new level.
“I do not think we can compare it to anything that came before,” Turkyilmaz
