2013 corruption scandal in Turkey

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The corruption scandal in Turkey in 2013 began in December 2013 when, following long-term investigations, numerous people close to the Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) were arrested. Among them are the sons of the interior, environment and economics ministers and the managing director of the state-owned Halkbank , Süleyman Aslan . The three ministers then submitted their resignation.

course

On December 17, 2013, the Turkish police arrested the sons of Interior Minister Muammer Güler , Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan and Environment Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar as part of the investigation into a corruption scandal. Those affected are accused of carrying out large-scale circumvention transactions with Iran , in which Turkey pays Iranian oil with gold in order to avoid sanctions against Iran in electronic money transactions. After the Iran sanctions, Turkey was no longer able to cover its import of oil without doing business with its neighbor and decided to use a loophole in the embargo, according to which gold transactions with non-governmental institutions in Iran were still permitted. The settlement was at least partially taken over by Halkbank , which initially credited the sales price of the oil to Iranian accounts, obtained the equivalent in gold and had it transported to Tehran. Between March 2012 and July 2013, gold worth 13 billion US dollars is said to have been brought into Iran. As of August 2013, gold transactions with Iran were also illegal under international rules. For political support of the deal, middlemen in Turkey, Iran and the United Arab Emirates received commissions of around 15%, which were bribed to politicians and security forces.

The authorities arrested a total of 84 people in December 2013, of whom 51 were still in custody on December 25.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke of a dirt campaign against his government. According to many observers, Erdoğan's opponent in the affair is the imam Fethullah Gülen , who lives in the United States, and the Gülen movement . In response, the government dismissed numerous senior police officers, including the Istanbul Police Chief, and transferred over 400 others.

On December 25, the fathers of the three arrested persons submitted their resignation as ministers. In a press release on December 25, 2013, the Prime Minister announced a reshuffle of the current cabinet . Ten new ministerial posts were filled.

The government subsequently also had 500 senior police officers removed from office (including the Istanbul Police Chief), apparently to make the investigation more difficult or to stop it. A Turkish prosecutor complained on December 26 that he had been prevented from expanding the corruption investigations into government circles. He also hinted at systematic police pressure on the judiciary.

On February 25, 2014, a telephone conversation allegedly taking place between Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan and his second son Necmettin Bilal Erdoğan on December 17, 2013 was published in the Turkish media . Prime Minister Erdoğan denied having made this phone call and called it a fake. In contrast, parts of the media, the opposition parties in Turkey and some of the politicians in the ruling party had come to believe that the telephone conversation was real. In this phone conversation, Erdogan instructs his son to get funds out of the house as quickly as possible.

The courts ultimately dismissed the charges.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Sons of Ministers under suspicion of corruption
  2. ↑ Tagesschau.de : Resignation of Minister Number Three ( Memento from December 26, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ A b Seymour M. Hersh : The Red Line and the Rat Line . In: London Review of Books , April 17, 2014
  4. ↑ How loyal ones became “dark forces”
  5. ^ Corruption in Turkey. Pretrial detention for Minister-Sons on FAZ.NET , accessed on December 21, 2013
  6. ↑ Corruption scandal in Turkey: Police find heaps of money on deutsch-tuerkische-nachrichten.de, accessed on December 21, 2013.
  7. ↑ FAZ.net December 26, 2013: In response to the corruption scandal, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan exchanged 10 out of 26 cabinet positions in the government
  8. ↑ sueddeutsche.de December 26, 2013: Erdoğan tries to save his skin - Erdogan has forced several ministers to resign because of allegations of bribery
  9. ↑ FAZ.net: Chronology of the events
  10. ↑ FAZ.net December 26, 2013: Public prosecutor complains about pressure on the judiciary
  11. ↑ Sueddeutsche: Corruption affair in Turkey, alleged telephone recordings burden Erdogan
  12. ↑ spiegel.de:Turkey, Youtube video brings Erdogan into distress