Sedat Peker's brother detained after his allegations about assassination of a journalist

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Crime leader Sedat Peker's brother Atilla Peker was detained in Fethiye, Muğla yesterday (May 23), following his new YouTube video.

In a self-imposed exile in the UAE, Peker has been releasing videos, claiming to make revelations about illegal practices of government officials and people close to the government, including himself.

In yesterday's (May 23) video, Peker talked about the 1996 murder of journalist Kutlu Adalı from Northern Cyprus. He was assassinated shortly after writing an article about the robbery of millions of dollars worth of icons from St. Barnabas Monastery in Famagusta, Cyprus.

"A man to sell Cyprus to the Greeks"

According to Peker, Korkut Eken, a police intelligence chief, approached him to find people to kill Adalı.

"At that time, we were all together, Mehmet Ağar [then interior minister], Korkut Eken... We were young, we were patriots. They would usually give me jobs related to businesspeople rather than unsolved murders," he said, referring to the widespread extrajudicial killings at the time, for which both Ağar and Eken stood trial. A court yesterday overturned their acquittal of killing 19 people.

"[Eken] told me that 'There is a man in Cyprus, he wants to sell Cyprus to the Greeks.' He said 'two professionals'... I told him 'I'll give you my brother, Atilla Peker.' He is a specialist, he grew up on the streets.

Peker said the assassination "thankfully" failed as he later understood that Adalı was not someone to "sell Cyprus to the Greeks" but was an "honorable man."

"Another team affiliated with them killed [Adalı]. I came across brother Korkut, he said to me 'That job is done.'

"Atilla Peker will tell the truth. If we killed him, I'd say we killed him. It's time-barred now. I always watched his spouse's struggle from afar. What should I say? We are all the same."

After the video, Attila Peker was detained in a villa in Fethiye's Kayaköy Neighborhood. Police officers also detained Yunus O., who is said to be his bodyguard, and seized an unlicensed gun and two magazines.

After the detention, Peker questioned why police detained only his brother.

"As a person who believes in the holiness of the state, it's painful to me to say this. But some bureaucrats whose honor is equal to their salary, why don't you detain Korkut Eken and Mehmet Ağar and detain only my brother?" he wrote on Twitter.

Devletin kutsallığına inanmış olan şahsım tarafından bunu söylemek çok acı. Ancak namusu maaşı kadar olan bazı bürokratlar; korkut ekenle mehmet ağarı neden gözaltına almıyorsunuz, sadece benim kardeşimi alıyorsunuz?

— Sedat Peker (@sedat_peker) May 23, 2021

Journalist Adalı was shot dead in front of his home on July 6, 1996. The Northern Cyprus administration was not able to identify the perpetrators.

Kutlu Adalı's spouse İlkay Adalı filed a case with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against Turkey. On March 31, 2005, the court convicted Turkey due to the lack of an adequate and convincing investigation into the murder. (DŞ/VK)