Notorious Turkish mob boss Sedat Peker, who lives in exile in the UAE, has told people in his close circle that Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu’s recent visit to the UAE was for the purpose of requesting his extradition, according to a report by Deutsche Welle Turkish service on Thursday.
Soylu on Tuesday met with his Emirati counterpart, Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi as part of an official visit to the UAE and had a one-on-one meeting before they were joined by their accompanying delegations. Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE’s de facto ruler, also received Soylu at Qasr Al Bahr in Abu Dhabi on the same day.
According to DW, Peker’s comment on the visit was based on the fact that Turkey’s deputy chief of police, Resul Holoğlu, who conducted investigations into him in the past, was among the people who accompanied Soylu during his visit.
Holoğlu was appointed to the Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime Department, which follows criminal organizations, by Soylu in October 2016.
Peker sent shockwaves across the country in the summer of 2021 through scandalous revelations he made on social media about state-mafia relations, drug trafficking and murders implicating former and current state officials and their family members.
He had 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 Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2012 at the invitation of then-prime minister and current president Recep Tayyip 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.
On Feb. 23, the Ministry of Justice requested Peker’s temporary arrest for the purpose of extradition to Turkey after INTERPOL issued a Red Notice for the mafia leader’s arrest earlier that month.
Peker, who was silent for a long time out of concern for his safety and due to a digital embargo that was imposed on him that banned him from broadcasting exposés on the internet, became active again on social media for a while earlier this year, making shocking claims about some pro-government figures. He went silent again after vowing in early August to make scandalous revelations about the government’s dirty affairs in videos he would release two months before Turkey’s general and presidential elections scheduled for June 2023.
According to DW, in line with his promise, Peker delivered some documents and videos that he wanted published months before the elections to his trusted men.