Turkish mob boss Sedat Peker has revealed that a large number of civilians were armed with unregistered guns during a 2016 coup attempt and afterward, under the coordination of then-minister of labor and current interior minister Süleyman Soylu, local media reported on Thursday.
Soylu and his shadowy relations with the mafia have been a hot topic in the Turkish media ever since Peker, the head of one of Turkey’s most powerful mafia groups and once a staunch supporter of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has since early May been making shocking revelations about state-mafia relations, drug trafficking and murders implicating state officials and their family members.
Peker on Thursday in a series of tweets claimed that a box of unregistered AK-47s was taken from the Esenyurt district of İstanbul to the Balat neighborhood in the city’s Fatih district.
The weapons were transported in a car belonging to a youth branch official from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) one night in the first week of August 2016, less than a month after the July 15 coup attempt, in which 249 people were killed, according to Peker.
He further claimed that Abdülsebur Soğanlı, head of the AKP’s Esenyurt youth branch, interior ministry official Ahmet Onay, then-AKP İstanbul youth branch chairman Taha Ayhan and then vice chair and current head of the AKP’s İstanbul youth branch Osman Tomakin were involved in the transportation of the weapons coordinated by Soylu back in 2016.
Peker added that many civilians carrying unregistered AK-47s were also present at the TRT building on the night of the coup. “None of the firearms you distributed are registered,” Peker said, addressing Soylu.
“Why did you continue distributing weapons, along with that shady organization of yours that plans to make you the next president [of Turkey] in the aftermath of the July 15 [putsch bid]?” Peker also asked.
Following the crime boss’s revelations, Turkish lawyer Vural Ergül asked in a tweet, “How many Turkish citizens were killed or injured on July 15 with guns revealed by Peker to have been unregistered?”
“Is there any relation between the ballistics and autopsy reports of some of the July 15 [coup attempt] victims and the guns that Peker revealed to have been distributed illegally?” the lawyer further questioned.
Soylu has so far been Peker’s main target, primarily because he ordered a police raid on the gangster’s house in April when his wife and three children were home alone and because he called Peker “a dirty mafia leader” in a tweet.
The mafia leader has formerly claimed that it was connections to his family that had helped Soylu rise through the ranks of the right-wing True Path Party (DYP) before he joined the ruling AKP in 2012 at the invitation of Erdoğan. He also claimed that Soylu helped him avoid police prosecution by notifying him that an investigation was being prepared against him, before he fled Turkey in early 2020. The mob boss further said Soylu previously told people that he and Erdoğan “liked” Peker.