Turkey’s main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, pressed charges with the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office against a notorious Turkish mafia boss Nov. 18 after he openly threatened him in a letter he shared via Twitter triggering uproar. Kilicdaroglu’s lawyer said the four-page diatribe handwritten and signed by Alaattin Cakici posed a direct threat to his client, who is the leader of the pro-secular Republican People’s Party (CHP).
In the letter, dated Nov. 17 and peppered with obscenities and threats of physical violence, Cakici accused Kilicdaroglu of treason in concert with Kurdish militants and foreign powers. “Be sensible,” he warned, using an expression that is commonly used by Turkish gangsters to intimidate their victims. Cakici’s ire was sparked by Kilicdaroglu’s suggestion in a speech to the parliament the same day that the mobster had been recently freed from prison thanks to pressure on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from his far-right nationalist partner Devlet Bahceli, while thousands of prisoners of conscience continue to rot in Turkish jails.
