Bülent Çiftlik

Bülent Çiftlik (born May 3, 1972 in Hamburg ) is a former German politician who was elected to the Hamburg parliament in 2008 for the SPD . After the accusation of mediating a marriage of convenience, Çiftlik left the SPD parliamentary group at the beginning of July 2010 and, at the end of the legislative period in February 2011, also the citizenship. He was sentenced to two and a half years without parole, which became final in December 2018.

Life

Bülent Çiftlik is the son of Turkish immigrants who came to Germany in 1963. He was born in Hamburg, attended school there and graduated from high school. He then completed a degree in political science in Hamburg and Manhattan (US state Kansas ). Since January 2001, Çiftlik has worked as a political advisor and since 2004 as press spokesman for the SPD Hamburg . In 2002, Çiftlik was elected to the board of the Flottbek - Othmarschen district. Two years later he was elected to the board of the Altona district association and in April 2008 he took over the chairmanship of the Flottbek-Othmarschen district.

In the 2008 general election, he was able to prevail against former parliamentary group leader Walter Zuckerer due to the new state suffrage and a committed election campaign in the Altona constituency , although his party had only placed him in fourth place. In the citizenry, he sat for his parliamentary group in the submission committee, the family, children and youth committee as well as in the social and equality committee. He was also a specialist spokesman for migration , refugees and foreigners.

On 5 November 2010 Çiftlik was for a party planning process from the SPD ruled out . He announced that he would appeal the decision. On January 5, 2011, the disqualification from the party was confirmed by the state arbitration commission of the Hamburg SPD and on April 26, 2011 also by the party's federal arbitration commission. Çiftlik sued the Berlin Higher Regional Court against his exclusion from the party and was right.

Criminal proceedings

After the Hamburg public prosecutor's office started investigations against Çiftlik on suspicion of mediating a marriage of convenience , he was given leave of absence from his position as press spokesman for the Hamburg SPD on May 30, 2009 with immediate effect. It has been proven that Çiftlik instigated his ex-girlfriend in 2007 to pretend to marry a Turkish acquaintance in return for payment of € 7,000 in order to give him a permanent right of residence in Germany. From the money, Çiftlik used 3,000 euros for his election campaign in 2008. On January 5, 2010, the public prosecutor's office at the Hamburg-St. Georg was charged with violating the Residence Act in the sense of initiating a marriage of convenience, and the main proceedings were opened in April 2010. On June 28, 2010, he was sentenced to pay a fine of 12,000 euros (150 daily rates of 80 euros each). SPD country leader Olaf Scholz therefore called on Çiftlik to resign his mandate and leave the party. Thereupon he left the parliamentary group, but kept the party book and mandate. Both Çiftlik and the public prosecutor's office appealed against the judgment of the Hamburg District Court.

In the course of a house search , the investigators found evidence of the manipulation of postal voting documents. In order to promote his entry into Hamburg's parliament, Çiftlik instigated four of his electoral workers in at least 56 cases to write down the names of doorbell signs of Germans of Turkish origin from the constituency and to request documents for postal voting for the citizens concerned without their knowledge. Ten days before the state elections on February 24, 2008, around 150 postal votes with forged signatures turned up in the Altona district office. In the period from December 2007 to February 15, 2011, Çiftlik also tried to manipulate the fictitious marriage process by using spy software to spy out the password for the married woman's e-mail account and then to use her name without her knowledge To send messages and thus to raise suspicion. He also instigated several people to exonerate him by making false statements. On January 14, 2011, the Hamburg public prosecutor announced that Çiftlik u. a. Investigations were opened on suspicion of forgery of documents in several cases as well as incitement to forge documents. In addition, Çiftlik was charged with assault in February 2011 after slapping a witness. On March 15, 2011, he was finally sentenced to pre-trial detention and on March 21, 2011 charges were brought before the Hamburg Regional Court . At the beginning of July 2011, however, the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court decided to suspend the execution of the arrest warrant, subject to conditions and against bail, despite the risk of obscuration , as the main proceedings had not yet opened after more than three months of pre -trial detention and further execution of the pre -trial detention was therefore disproportionate .

On July 7, 2011, the Hamburg Regional Court opened the main proceedings for forgery of documents in several cases, incitement to forge documents, coercion, incitement to unofficial false testimony and bodily harm, as well as the appeal procedure for violating the Residence Act and spying on data. The proceedings were apparently combined. On June 6, 2013, after more than a year of the main hearing, the criminal proceedings were suspended because Çiftlik had not returned from a business trip to India in March and the court was unable to determine that Çiftlik had stayed away from the main hearing without authorization. Çiftlik had alleged that the Indian police had confiscated his passport due to his involvement in a traffic accident and thus prevented him from leaving the country. On June 19, 2017, Çiftlik was sentenced to two and a half years' imprisonment without parole . Six months of these were counted towards the prison sentence because of the length of the proceedings. The judgment put Çiftlik revision to the Federal Court a. The revision was rejected in December 2018.

Web links

• Bülent Çiftlik (private website)
• Portrait: The great seducer in Die Zeit on January 24, 2012
• “Careers with a Background” , Constantin Magnis, Cicero Magazine, July 2010

Single receipts

1. ↑ Bülent Ciftlik leaves the SPD parliamentary group Press release from July 1, 2010
2. ↑ ^{a b} Accusation of fictitious marriage: Bülent C. must remain in custody
3. ^ The Barack Obama von Altona in Süddeutsche Zeitung of March 1, 2008
4. ↑ Bülent Çiftlik, Hamburg state election 2008, Altona constituency, 4th list on parliament watch
5. ↑ Hamburg SPD excludes Ciftlik ( Memento from January 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) from November 5, 2010
6. ↑ SPD arbitration commission confirms expulsion of Bülent Ciftlik. mobil.abendblatt.de, January 5, 2011, accessed December 9, 2014 . 
7. ^ Court ruling: Ciftlik remains SPD member Hamburger Morgenpost (website) from September 11, 2013
8. ↑ "Obama" is in the pillory. TAZ, June 2, 2009, accessed June 19, 2017 . 
9. Jump out if convicted. TAZ, May 27, 2010, accessed June 19, 2017 .  
10. ↑ Hamburg SPD member convicted of mediating a marriage of convenience on June 29, 2010
11. ↑ Hamburg SPD calls on young politicians to leave in Spiegel Online on June 29, 2010
12. ^ Public prosecutor's office opens the Bülent Ciftlik file. WeltN24 GmbH, July 13, 2011, accessed June 19, 2017 . 
13. ↑ Bülent Ciftlik in the dock again - fuss about a cleared charge. TAZ, October 26, 2011, accessed June 19, 2017 . 
14. ↑ Assault? New investigation against Bülent Ciftlik. Hamburger Abendblatt, February 18, 2011, accessed on June 19, 2017 . 
15. ↑ Assault? Ex-SPD spokesman Bülent Ciftlik is in custody. Morgenpost Verlag GmbH, March 16, 2011, accessed on June 19, 2017 . 
16. ↑ Hanseatic Higher Regional Court confirms urgent suspicion against Bülent Ciftlik - accused spared further pre-trial detention. (No longer available online.) Press office of the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court, July 4, 2011, archived from the original on October 23, 2016 ; Retrieved June 19, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
17. ^ Trial against Bülent Ciftlik. Deutschlandradio, February 9, 2012, accessed on June 19, 2017 . 
18. ↑ Ex-SPD spokesman sentenced to a long prison term. WeltN24 GmbH, June 19, 2017, accessed on June 19, 2017 . 
19. ↑ Bülent Çiftlik: At the bottom. Zeit Online GmbH, May 30, 2017, accessed June 19, 2017 . 
20. ↑ Bülent Ciftlik has to go to prison for two years. NDR, June 19, 2017, accessed June 19, 2017 .