Erdogan defends interior minister against corruption claims from mob leader

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that he stands by the interior minister Suleyman Soylu, who has been become embroiled in claims of corruption, murder and mafia links from a mob leader.

Sedat Peker, who became a prominent mob leader in the nineties and served several years in jail, has released several videos on his YouTube channel since May 2, claiming that Soylu was involved in many crimes such as corruption, murder, rape, and had secret relations with mobs.

Soylu has denied the accusations. 

For the first time, Erdogan publicly commented on the issue while speaking to MPs from his ruling Justice and Development Party in parliament. 

"We know that disturbances to the atmosphere of peace and trust provided in our country are behind the attacks targeting our Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu. We stand with our interior minister in his fight with criminal and terrorist groups," the state-owned Anadolu Agency (AA) quoted the president as saying.

"We will expose this game,” he added.

Peker, who claims to currently live in Dubai, has called on Soylu to resign. He is expected to release a new video about Soylu - who is the focus of most of videos and tweets which get millions of views, likes, comments and shares - on Sunday.  

Soylu has been in office since 2016, widely praised by nationalist Turks mostly for crackdowns on dissidents.