Turkish soccer team head blames Gulenists for jail term
Aziz Yildirim, the popular president of soccer giant Fenerbahce, has pointed to the Gulen movement as being behind his conviction of game-fixing.
Earlier this month, Turkey’s highest court upheld the jail sentence of Aziz Yildirim, president of Fenerbahce, one of Turkey’s two top sports clubs, and a pronounced critic of the Fethullah Gulen movement. Yildirim will soon return to prison to serve a 26-month sentence.
In the wake of the court ruling, Yildirim argued that the match-fixing case in which he was convicted was a political trial with a political conclusion. He claims he was convicted by Gulenist-controlled police and special courts because of his anti-Gulen views.
Here are highlights from Yildirim’s recent statements:
“Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his statement on Dec. 17, said that a parallel state exists. This parallel state is run by Gulen and his community. All those prosecutors, judges and policemen were removed from office because they are Gulenists. … So, it means that all those operations in the past, including the one against us, were the work of the Gulen community. I cannot be sure now whether the Appeals Court judges [who upheld my sentence] are in the service of the parallel state or the Republic of Turkey. The justice minister should make a statement to shed light on the situation.
