Sedat Peker

Sedat Peker. Photo: Sedat Peker's Facebook page.

"If the judiciary cannot fight against crime, corruption and bribery everything will be finished. We are now waiting for an effective and comprehensive investigation [into Peker's claims]," Muharrem Erkek, the vice chair of the Republican People's Party, CHP, said on Monday after his party filed a criminal complaint.

The Justice Ministry requested the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to temporarily detain and repatriate fugitive mafia boss Sedat Peker after Interpol issued a red notice for him.

A red notice was issued by Interpol on Feb. 1 to search for Peker internationally in 194 countries.

Following a statement regarding the 1996 murder of Kutlu Adalı, a prominent Turkish Cypriot journalist, Atilla Peker has been released with a judicial control measure on the charge of "helping to premeditated murder" by an Istanbul court to which he was referred to.

President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has voiced his ultimate support to Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, who has come under fire by a mafia leader in a series of videos, stressing that the real target is Turkey's success in fighting terrorism and bringing down criminal networks.

Claims voiced by a ringleader who is now based abroad are part of an ongoing operation against Turkey and its rise in the region, the interior minister has said, maintaining that he became the subject of such an attack because of his success in the fight against terrorism and organized crime.

Police in Turkey carried out an operation against members of an organized crime group.

In an Istanbul-based operation launched in five provinces across Turkey, the police raided 121 addresses with arrest warrants for 63 suspects, including Sedat Peker, a notorious convicted criminal, who was determined to be the ringleader of the criminal group.

The Turkish Constitutional Court ruled on March 14 that the prison administration at the Ferizli L-type prison in the Sakarya province failed to protect the “right to life” for Fatih Kolbasar, an inmate who committed suicide in his cell in 2008. 

Turkish prosecutors have sought up to 11 years in prison for a previously convicted crime gang boss for his remarks vowing to "bathe in the blood" of signatories of a campaign launched in reaction to the Turkish Armed Forces' anti-terror operations in the southeast.

Hundreds of Turkish academics have expressed solidarity with their colleagues suspected of terrorism crimes after signing a petition to call for an end to ongoing violence in southeastern Turkey in a statement sent to the Hürriyet Daily News.

A notorious convicted criminal has publicly issued death threats against academics and intellectuals who called on the Turkish government to end security operations in Southeast Anatolia, just a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an labeled more than 1,000 national and international academics as "poor excuses for intellectuals."