Turkey’s main opposition CHP head to justice minister: Do you track my e-mails?

ANKARA

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Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has asked Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ whether the government has been tracking his e-mails regarding claims about Adil Öksüz, one of the key figures of the failed July 2016 coup attempt.

In an interview with private broadcaster TGRT Haber late on April 3, Bozdağ said the CHP leader had received an e-mail saying Öksüz was “an agent of the Turkish intelligence agency.”

“There is an e-mail containing slanders that ‘Adil Öksüz is a MİT [National Intelligence Organization] agent.’ How did this e-mail come to Kılıçdaroğlu? Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu, did you receive an e-mail from the U.S. or not? Did an e-mail come to one of your party’s lawmakers or not? What did you do with this e-mail? Do you know who sent those e-mails? What is your connection with them?” Bozdağ had said.

The CHP head denied receiving such an e-mail, while claiming that in this way the government had confessed that it was tracking his e-mails.

“They are probably tracking the e-mails I get. With this remark, they confess that they are tracking me and my e-mails. Let them explain that,” Kılıçdaroğlu told Hürriyet columnist Abdulkadir Selvi.

“No such mail has come to me. If there is such a thing, the justice minister should explain it or admit that my e-mails are being tracked,” he added.

Previously, Kılıçdaroğlu had stated that he held certain key information about Öksüz but could not disclose it as he did not yet have sufficient documents.

He later told Selvi that he had received intelligence suggesting that Öksüz was a MİT agent.

Öksüz, who was the Gülen movement’s leading figure in the Air Force, was briefly detained after the attempted coup but disappeared after being released.