Mehmet Ağar

From alleged drug trafficking and a murder cover-up to weapons transfers to Islamic militants, a convicted crime ringleader has been dishing the dirt on members of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party through a series of tell-all videos that have captivated the nation and turned him into an unlikely social media phenomenon.

Following a statement regarding the 1996 murder of Kutlu Adalı, a prominent Turkish Cypriot journalist, Atilla Peker has been released with a judicial control measure on the charge of "helping to premeditated murder" by an Istanbul court to which he was referred to.

The Istanbul Prosecutor's Office has launched an investigation into the murder of a Turkish Cypriot journalist in 1996 following the claims of Sedat Peker, a fugitive mafia boss who has recently been making online exposés about his network's criminal acts and relations with the politics.

Sliding in opinion polls amid a severe economic crisis and a surge in coronavirus infections, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is looking unusually embattled these days. And now his administration has been hit by a roiling corruption scandal that some say has a fin de siècle aura about it.

A former police chief and interior minister, Mehmet Ağar, has told a parliamentary commission investigating the July 15 coup attempt that all illegal organizations, like the Gülenist network, have had links with foreign intelligence services.