Turkey: Underworld baron Peker’s brother arrested

His brother was taken into custody by the Turkish police on Sunday (23/5) Sedat Packer, convicted boss of organized crime gang, after the baron of the underworld complained that he had been sent 25 years ago to carry out a mission that failed, to assassinate a Turkish Cypriot journalist, by order of a former minister.

Turkish police have arrested Attila Peker and a bodyguard at a rented house in the Aegean province of Mula, according to NTV.

Hours earlier, Sadat Packer, who last appeared in a video series accusing former and current officials of various shady cases, said he had instructed his brother in 1996 to assassinate politician and journalist Koutlou Antali.

The allegations made by Sadat Packer, which so far have not been confirmed by any other source, relate to cases that go back decades. In fact, they seem to be threatening to further tarnish the image of the president’s government Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which is already struggling to cope with the country’s financial problems, which are partly due to the new coronavirus pandemic.

Reacting indirectly but clearly to the videos released by Sadat Packer, the head of state assured last week that he had brought peace to Turkey by cracking down on organized crime gangs.

Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu, one of the underworld baron’s targets, has filed a defamation suit against Sadat Packer.

In one of the videos, Sedat Packer claimed that Mr. Soylu was protecting him and “informed” him in time about the start of an investigation against him last year so that he could leave the Turkey before he was arrested.

In the latest video, which he posted on YouTube last Sunday and already has over 7 million views, Sedat Packer says that his brother could not complete the mission to execute the journalist. Koutlou Antali was assassinated shortly afterwards, in July 1996.

The investigation carried out, as broadcast by the Athens News Agency, did not reveal who was responsible for the murder of the politician and journalist. The European Court of Human Rights fined Turkey in 2005 for failing to conduct an “adequate and effective investigation into the circumstances of the murder”.

According to Sedat Packer, the same former minister who wanted Antalya dead is responsible for the murder of another journalist, Ugur Mumcu, as well as the husband of Pervin Buldan, the current co-chair of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), who expresses the Kurdish minority. The mobster refers to former Interior Minister Memet Agar.

Moumjou’s family demanded on Sunday that an investigation be conducted into the allegations of the underworld man. Ms Buldan, for her part, stressed that her husband had been killed by the state and that those responsible had been acquitted, adding that she would try to ensure that they would be tried again.

The 49-year-old Sedat Peker, a figure in the Turkish underworld, became notorious in the 1990s. He has served prison sentences in his homeland. He said last week that he was currently in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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