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Targeting government officials in his viral YouTube videos for weeks, Sedat Peker has said that his threats to the Academics for Peace during a 2016 rally were for the benefit of the government at the time.
Hundreds of academics had published a declaration accusing the government of human rights violations during the conflict in several Kurdish-majority provinces in the southeast.
As the academics were prosecuted for "terrorism-related" charges, Peker, addressing them, had said, "We'll make you bleed in streams and we'll take a bath with your blood."
A figure close to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) at the time, Peker was acquitted in the case filed over his threats.
When Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, one of the main targets of Peker in his videos, mentioned the events during a program on Habertürk TV last night (May 24), Peker quickly responded to him on Twitter.
CLICK - Sedat Peker's new video targets Interior Minister Soylu
"Everything that I said about blood was for the benefit of the government at the time they were uttered. Because then it was necessary to create a climate of fear," Peker wrote after Soylu asked, "Did these threats do good or harm for the AK Party?"
Throughout the program, Peker posted about 30 tweets, immediately responding to almost everything the minister said about him.
At the end of the night, there were a lot of jokes and criticism about Soylu as to how he avoided answering the most critical questions about Peker's allegations while talking about other things at length.
Merdan Yanardağ, one of the four journalists on the program, told Soylu at one point that "We can talk about whatever we want tomorrow, but you'll not have answered our questions."
Peker, meanwhile, gained about 300,000 Twitter followers within a few hours.
According to the minister, Peker is a pawn in a wider plot by "outer powers" whose real target is not him but the state and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Soylu also downplayed Peker's allegations on the relationship between the two, saying that crime groups and leaders always try to portray themselves as if they are close to the government.
About Peker's accusations against former Interior Minister Mehmet Ağar of forcing a businessperson to sell a luxury marina for only 29 million dollars, he said Ağar should immediately resign from the company that currently operates the marina.
Soylu and Peker
The mafia leader describes Soylu as "a man I've invested in for 20 years," since the start of his political career while Soylu denies any relationship with him.
Peker says it was Soylu who informed him about an investigation against him so that he was able to leave the country in late 2019 before getting arrested.
He also claims that Soylu had promised him that he would return to the country in April.
To prove his claims, Peker released the recording of a video call between him and a journalist who was apparently mediating between him and Soylu in early May.
Soylu said that the conversation was not within his knowledge, which was also admitted by journalist Hadi Özışık.
Peker also shared a photo showing Soylu together with a person whom he described as "my former right hand."
Other allegations by Peker against Soylu include corruption and drug trafficking. (AS/VK)
