‘No one is above law,’ PM Yıldırım says over minister’s ‘break drug dealers’ legs’ comment
ANKARA
Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım on Jan. 5 said “no one is above the law, whether be it a minister or a prime minister,” in response to a question asking him to evaluate Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu’s suggestion that it is the “police’s duty to break drug dealers’ legs” earlier this week.
Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım on Jan. 5 said “no one is above the law, whether be it a minister or a prime minister,” in response to a question asking him to evaluate Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu’s suggestion that it is the “police’s duty to break drug dealers’ legs” earlier this week.
Soylu “has publicly shared the Interior Ministry’s stance on the fight against drugs in his own words. His style of wording might have led to misunderstandings, but he has tried to explain how despicable this business [of dealing drugs to children] is and should be addressed in the strongest way possible. No one, whether it be a minister or a prime minister, is above the law,” Yıldırım said during an opening ceremony in the capital Ankara.
Yıldırım’s comments came after opposition politicians and lawyers filed a criminal complaint against Soylu. In response to the outcry, Soylu told daily Hürriyet he had made the remark to “draw attention to the issue.”
“Regardless of how much they will criticize or condemn me for saying this, when a drug dealer is seen outside a school, it is the police’s duty to [literally] break that drug dealer’s legs,” Soylu had said during a General Security and Struggle against Drugs Meeting in Ankara on Jan. 3.
“Those who do what’s necessary against such people [drug dealers] - who take away the lives of my country’s youth, who poison them and put their families in misery - can put the responsibility on me,” he added.
In response, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Tur Yıldız Biçer said she had lodged a complaint against Soylu under an article of the Turkish Penal Code on abuse of power.
“The order constitutes a criminal offence and cannot be fulfilled under any circumstances. Whoever fulfils the order cannot be free of responsibility,” Biçer said on Jan. 4.
The CHP MP noted that under the penal code, a person found guilty of publicly encouraging such an offence can be punished with a jail sentence of up to five years.
The Istanbul Bar Association has also announced that it had filed a complaint against Soylu over his “unlawful” remark.“Without any doubt, the order in question cannot be fulfilled under any condition. If it was then both the person who gave the order and the person who fulfilled it, it would be punished,” read a criminal complaint letter submitted on Jan. 5 by lawyer Atilla Özen on behalf of the Istanbul Bar Association.
Istanbul Bar Association chairman Mehmet Durakoğlu also noted on Jan. 4 that Soylu’s comments violated the principle of presumption of innocence.
“[Soylu’s remark] is quite clearly criminal. I cannot accept such words being said, even in irony … It’s also not correct to believe that such things will make the fight against drugs more effective,” Durakoğlu said, as quoted by the Doğan News Agency.
However, İbrahim Kalın, the spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, defended Soylu’s comments on Jan. 4, describing them as an “expression of determination.”
Hürriyet daily columnist Deniz Zeyrek reported in his Jan. 5-dated article that Soylu had told him he had made this remark simply to “draw attention to the issue.”
“I used this expression to draw attention to the importance of the issue. We need to be determined and show our determination ... I have been saying the same thing for the last two years and no policeman has broken a leg,” Soylu reportedly told Zeyrek in response to questions about the reaction to his comments.
