Nationalist party leader calls on AKP lawmakers to ‘make choice between burglary and law’

ANKARA

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Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli has called on lawmakers from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to “make a choice between burglary and law” ahead of today’s vote of parliament’s General Assembly on whether four former ministers should be sent to the Supreme Council.

Addressing his party deputies on Jan. 20 hours before the vote, Bahçeli said the MHP’s votes are certain, but the ministers can only be sent to the Supreme Council depending on the votes of “scrupulous” ruling AKP deputies. 

“AKP lawmakers will take a vital test in front of history and the nation,” he said.

A Turkish parliamentary inquiry commission had voted not to send four former ministers engulfed in the massive corruption and graft operation launched on Dec. 17, 2013, to the Supreme Council for trial, while controversially deciding to destroy the primary evidence of the case.

Despite the vote in the commission, a majority of whose members were from the AKP, the quartet could still be sent to the top court following a final vote in parliament’s General Assembly.