Doğan Group complains about AKP deputy head’s defamatory remarks

“Süleyman Soylu, the AKP deputy head and deputy candidate from Trabzon, has got into the habit of making delusive statements and defamations targeting Doğan Holding Honorary President Aydın Doğan. Soylu has been fined 20,000 Turkish Liras in a lawsuit filed for those defamations. The other lawsuits continue,” the group’s corporate communication deputy chairman Ahter Kutadgu said in a statement on May 13.

The statement reiterated Soylu’s claim, made on a live television program late May 12, that the group wanted to see politician Abdüllatif Şener replace Soylu as the Democrat Party’s chair following Soylu’s transfer to the AKP. “We regret and condemn this completely unreal claim, which intends to produce political gains by creating sensation around the name of our group,” the statement said.

“People who are nominated to be the representative of our nation are obliged to be honest and prove their claims. The underbred and offensive defamations will assuredly be called to account before the law. However, before this, the fact that Soylu should prove these claims with concrete evidences to Trabzon society, which he is canvassing, is the minimum honesty necessary for a person who is one of the top executives and deputy candidate of a party bearing the responsibility of government,” it said.

Doğan Group’s statement came a day after Soylu was fined over his insulting remarks made during a web-published interview.