Top Erdoğan bureaucrat accused of trafficking young women for politicians

Turkish mafia boss Sedat Peker may have taken a break from releasing videos on YouTube accusing top bureaucrats, politicians and pro-government businessmen of corruption and criminal activities, but he is persisting with such claims on social media platform Twitter.

In a series of tweets posted on June 26, Peker accused Korkmaz Karaca, a member of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s advisory council on economic policy, of involvement in a trafficking ring that supplied women to politicians including former Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal.

4-deniz baykal’ın kaset olayından sonra eski pezevenkleri geri çekilince görevi nasıl devraldın? Kardeşlerim, bunun benle görüşmek istemesinin sebebi, deniz baykal’a getirdiği kızlardan birinin ailesinin haberi olmuş.

— Sedat Peker (@sedat_peker) June 26, 2021

In May 2010, a video uploaded on the Internet allegedly showed Baykal engaging in extramarital relations with a female CHP deputy. Baykal resigned shortly afterward, to be replaced by current CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

A 2015 investigation revealed that Baykal and 28 other people, including top army officials, bureaucrats, opposition politicians and Erdoğan himself had been spied on via hidden cameras, Hürriyet newspaper reported at the time.

Korkmaz arranged to bring “girls” to Baykal and others, as part of the scheme, Peker said.

“The family of one of the girls he brought to Deniz Baykal got wind of the situation. So, he (Karaca) tried to reach me via some of the people closest to me,” Peker said.

Peker said Karaca also coordinated a 2017 meeting between Baykal and Erdoğan in a hospital where the former was staying in intensive care.

Karaca had acted as an adviser to Baykal between 2010 and 2017 before switching his allegiance to Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Karaca has appeared in public with many top AKP officials, including Erdoğan, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu and Erdoğan’s son-in-law and former Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, according to photographs published by local media including sendika.org.

Karaca responded to the accusations in a comment on Facebook on Monday, according to local media including Tele1.

“Did I sell your mother or your wife?” he said after a social media user accused him of “selling women throughout the fatherland”.

Many of the girls used in the trafficking ring came from disadvantaged backgrounds, Dilek Ekmekçi, a lawyer, said on Twitter on Monday.

“Those sold to judges, prosecutors, bureaucrats and politicians are women who grew up in Child Services Directorate dormitories, many of whom were made public servants out of a dormitory quota,” she said.

Ekmekçi said in September that she had pressed charges against the trafficking ring after her sister became one of its victims. She said the ring included police chief Koray Ö. and municipal workers Mevlüt Ö. and Ali H., who were loyal to former Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek but were also protected by Mansur Yavaş, a member of the CHP who was elected as Ankara mayor in 2019.

Several regional AKP executives and supporters were also part of the scheme, she said.

One of the people that the ring sent escorts to was former Sincan Penal Court Chairman with the initials O.K., who had been involved in another escort and cocaine scandal in 2010, she said.

Others Ekmekçi said were involved included H.K., a chairman of a penal chamber in the Istanbul Regional Court of Justice, Kayseri chief public prosecutor M.K., and Ankara-based intelligence official K.Ö.

Some of the women prostituted to top officials were forced to use drugs, she said. Ekmekçi said the legal complaint she filed was dismissed “all of a sudden, one day after I petitioned to have my witnesses heard and present evidence”.