As of: February 23, 2024, 6:28 p.m
By: Erkan Pehlivan
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Press
Split
Ali Yesildag knows President Erdogan's family very well.
He reveals his secrets and has to escape.
Now Greece wants to extradite the man.
Frankfurt – Ali Yeşildağ is a former companion of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who later fled abroad and moved to Greece.
According to a report in the Greek newspaper
Ekaterimini,
the Supreme Court in Greece approved extradition to Turkey in a ruling on Wednesday.
The judges rejected a lower court's request to prevent the extradition.
If Greek Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis agrees to the verdict, Yeşildağ will be extradited to Turkey.
There is an international arrest warrant against the businessman based on a Turkish request.
The Turkish government accuses the man of committing robbery and murder in 1986 when he was 17 years old.
“The whole family is made up of thieves”: corruption allegations against President Erdogan
In several videos, Yeşildağ had incriminated the Turkish president and his family.
Erdogan would earn a lot from government tenders, for example.
Erdogan is said to have collected $1 billion just from issuing the license to operate the airport in Antalya, Yeşildağ said in one of his videos.
The president's son, Bilal, is also expected to earn a lot from government contracts.
He is particularly active in the construction sector and is involved in companies that received government contracts.
According to Yeşildağ, the family's wealth came from criminal activities.
“The whole family is made up of thieves,” Yeşildağ says of Erdogan’s family.
Erdogan and his children have now become “dollar billionaires”.
At the request of Türkiye – Greece wants to extradite Ali Yesildag
The court decision is causing waves in Greece because Turkey's extradition request is apparently politically motivated and the Supreme Court in Greece is complying with it anyway.
“The reasoning behind this decision is short and sweet: according to the Turkish authorities, Ali Yeşildağ has not served a 1,765-day prison sentence for crimes he is alleged to have committed 38 years ago as a minor,” writes Greek journalist Sofia Kartali on her Website.
Yeşildağ's lawyer, Yiannis Patzanakidis, is also afraid of the Turkish justice system.
“I won't travel to Istanbul because I'm afraid of being persecuted - let alone a man who exposed the corruption of the Erdogan system,” the journalist quoted the Turk's defender as saying.
A former companion of President Erdogan is putting a massive strain on him.
© dpa/Federico Gambarini
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The Turkish head of state therefore cannot afford bad news about him.
The journalist Cevheri Güven, who lives in exile in Germany, sees the verdict as a scandal.
“I know that Erdogan personally asked for the extradition of Ali Yeşildağ during his last visit to Greece.
The claim that he served an incomplete sentence for a crime committed in 1987 is comical, but the involvement of a European Union country in this comedy is dramatic,” says Güven in an interview with
Fr.de
from
IPPEN.MEDIA
.
If extradited to Turkey, Yesildag will likely face torture and life imprisonment.
“In preparation for this, an investigation has already been initiated against him, his wife and an employee for membership in a terrorist organization.
His wife was banned from leaving the country and one of his employees was arrested and is in prison,” says the exiled journalist.
Yesildag wanted to “reach a larger audience” with videos about Erdogan
Güven is very familiar with the Yeşildağ case.
It was he to whom the businessman passed his videos in which he revealed Erdogan's machinations.
Güven enjoys a wide reach on YouTube, although his social media channels are banned in Turkey.
The exiled journalist's channel has over 650,000 subscribers.
Yeşildağ himself had said that he sent his videos to Güven “to reach a larger audience.”
The fear of arbitrary justice in Turkey is not unfounded.
Political opponents in particular cannot hope for a constitutional process in Turkey.
In the rule of law index of the non-governmental organization “World Justice Project”, Turkey comes 117th out of 142 countries.
Human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International also repeatedly criticize the country for its lack of rule of law and massive human rights violations.