Turkey PM slams arrest of 52 allies in graft crackdown
Top police officers sacked, while government ministers' sons and business associates are detained on suspicion of corruption, in what Erdogan calls a "dirty operation"
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the detention of at least 52 associates – including the sons of three government ministers and businessmen close to Erdogan – in a high-profile corruption probe an “ugly” operation against the government.
At least 16 police chiefs in Istanbul and 18 in Ankara had been sacked in the wake of the dawn raids on Tuesday which led to the detention of the 52 people, sending shockwaves through Turkey’s political establishment.
Then on Wednesday came the scintillating details in leaks to local media: US$4.5 million in cash packed in shoeboxes found in the home of the chief executive of a state-run bank; a money-counting machine and piles of bank notes discovered in the bedroom of a government minister’s son.
Political tensions are running high in Turkey ahead of a series of elections starting next year that will pose a key test for Erdogan after the anti-government unrest in June.
“We will not allow political plotting,” he said. “Nobody has the right to darken the future of this country.”
Speaking at a news conference in the capital alongside the visiting Hungarian prime minister, Erdogan called the investigation a “dirty operation” and called those behind the corruption case a “criminal gang”.
