The Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office of Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals has demanded that the court overturn a 17-year prison sentence handed down to notorious Turkish mafia boss Alaattin Çakıcı for “incitement to premeditated murder,” the Demirören News Agency (DHA) reported on Wednesday.
The Anadolu 6th High Criminal Court sentenced the mafia boss to 17 years in prison on Sept. 25, 2020, in line with an indictment drafted by the Anadolu Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which also demanded prison sentences varying between three and 210 years for 26 other defendants.
The indictment said members of an armed criminal organization led by Çakıcı committed 25 offenses, including “incitement to premeditated murder,” “forming an armed criminal organization” and “incitement to inflict bodily harm,” in 2017.
Çakıcı appealed the decision at the İstanbul Regional Court of Justice, but the court upheld the sentence on June 28, 2021.
The mob boss then submitted a petition to the Supreme Court of Appeals requesting the reversal of his 17-year prison sentence.
According to DHA, the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office of the top appeals court demanded that Çakıcı’s sentence be overturned on the grounds that “provisions were established on insufficient grounds” and that the mob boss did not have a chance to defend himself since he didn’t attend the final hearing at the Anadolu 6th High Criminal Court due to health problems.
The prosecutor’s office sent its letter of notification to the 1st Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals for review.
Çakıcı is known for his ties to Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and election ally of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and had been convicted of establishing and leading a criminal organization, ordering a murder, instigating assault and insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Following Bahçeli’s call for a general amnesty, specifically citing Çakıcı, the mob boss was released on April 16, 2020, after serving 16 years of his decades-long sentence, as part of a law allowing for the release of tens of thousands of prisoners to ease overcrowding in Turkish jails during the coronavirus pandemic while excluding political prisoners convicted on terror charges.