Notorious Turkish mafia boss Sedat Peker’s lawyer has said his client is currently unable to make the scandalous revelations about the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) he previously promised due to a ban on his use of social media imposed by the UAE, local media reported on Friday.
Peker, the head of one of Turkey’s most powerful mafia groups and once a staunch supporter of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, left Turkey in early 2020 following the publication of a report related to arms trafficking to Syria that was allegedly carried out under the guise of humanitarian aid.
The mob boss, who lives in exile in the UAE, sent shockwaves across the country in the summer of 2021 through scandalous revelations on social media about state-mafia relations, drug trafficking and murders implicating former and current state officials and their family members.
Peker, who was silent for a long time out of concern for his safety and has been forbidden from broadcasting exposés on the internet, recently became active again on social media, making shocking claims about pro-government figures. He went silent again after saying in early August that he was saving some of his crucial revelations about political figures in Turkey and would make them two months before Turkey’s parliamentary and presidential elections in 2023 so that they would be fresh in the voters’ minds when they went to the polls.
With Turkey’s parliamentary and presidential elections slated for May 14, a Twitter account (@delicavus_ntn) very similar to one previously used by Peker for making revelations about government officials (@delicavus_nth) became active late on Thursday and shared some tweets hours after informing its followers that it would.
Commenting on the development in a series of tweets, Peker’s lawyer, Ersan Barkın, said it wasn’t the mob boss who sent the tweets from the new account.
“As of today, the ban on my client from using social media does not allow him to post anything. We’ve said this many times,” Barkın said.
In an interview with the Diken news website last month, Barkın said Peker was “ready to keep his promise” but thinks Turkish opposition parties should get the UAE to end his social media ban so he can make the revelations.
The lawyer said Peker believes the opposition parties, which give the impression that they could be in power in Turkey after the May elections, would change his legal status if they create a consensus to that end, adding that the UAE would definitely take into consideration such a call from the Turkish opposition since it’s a government that “really complies with legal standards.”
When asked whether Peker would still risk everything and make the revelations about the AKP government if the opposition fails to take action, the lawyer said he wouldn’t since what Peker was experiencing was similar to house arrest and that he would be arrested half an hour later if he did.
