Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) spokesperson Bülent Tezcan responded to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s statement on CHP leader’s role in the 'government illegal arms shipment case' CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoğlu has been imprisoned for.
"His words are pure evidence of the plot staged against the CHP. This is the confirmation of a big plot which unjustly took Enis Berberoğlu hostage and put him in prison and which unjustly targets CHP and its chair using Enis Berberoğlu,” Tezcan told daily Cumhuriyet.
Tezcan’s remarks came after Erdoğan on Sunday implied that CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu could stand trial in relation to the case of Berberoğlu. "The leader of the main opposition is obviously trying to muddy the waters over concerns that the charges leading to the imprisonment of one of his lawmakers may be linked to him as well. Don’t be surprised if Kılıçdaroğlu’s link to the issue related to the jailed lawmaker is revealed,” Erdoğan said on Saturday.
According to Tezcan, Erdoğan ordered judges to jail Berberoğlu and then changed court board and court chairs to ensure it was not revealed, since there was something that upset him about the case over MİT trucks.
"I hear different news coming from prison. 'I will speak if I am not freed,; the imprisoned person says,” Erdoğan also said, referring to Berberoğlu.
"Berberoğlu has not said such a thing. Our friends visit him every day for support. Those words are a covert indecent proposal from Erdoğan to Berberoğlu, telling him 'if you blame Kılıçdaroğlu, we will free you'," Tezcan said.
Turkish authorities on June 14 arrested a lawmaker from CHP after a court handed him a 25-year jail sentence for giving material about the illegal weapon shipment to jihadist in Syria.
Enis Berberoğlu was accused of providing Cumhuriyet newspaper with a video purporting to show Turkey's intelligence agency trucking weapons into Syria. The report in Cumhuriyet newspaper in May 2015 said that trucks owned by Turkey's state intelligence service were found to contain weapons and ammunition that were headed for Syria when they were stopped and searched in southern Turkey in early 2014.
