The leader of Turkey’s secular main opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, delivered an Oct. 18 deadline over the weekend to members of Turkey’s sprawling bureaucracy. They needed to stop engaging in illegal, “mafialike” activities. If they ignored his calls, they would not be exonerated on the grounds that they were acting under orders from their superiors, Kilicdaroglu warned.
His admonishments, relayed in a video, prompted a furious response from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kilicdaroglu’s references to the mafia and “the stench of sewage” rising from the corridors of power were an insult to the president, Erdogan’s lawyer Huseyin Aydin, charged in a criminal complaint with the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s office Monday.
