Prosecutors Launch Investigation into
Turkish Prime Minister
German Press Agency
March 26, 2007
Ankara- Prosecutors in Ankara are to decide whether to charge Turkish Prime
Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan for having used the honorific "Mr" when referring
to the imprisoned former leader of the illegal Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK), NTV
television said on Monday. Erdogan allegedly twice respectfully referred to
Abdullah Ocalan as "Mr" during an interview with Australia's SBS radio network
in 2000, less than a year after Ocalan had been captured by Turkish commandos in
the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
Erdogan was mayor of Istanbul at the time and became prime minister in 2002.
Ocalan is serving a life sentence in prison, his original death sentence having
been commuted to life imprisonment after Turkey abolished capital punishment.
Earlier this month the leader of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Social Party (DTP),
Ahmet Turk, was sentenced to six months in prison for having used the honorific
at a political rally.
The details of Erdogan's radio interview from 2000 have come to light in the
Turkish press in the last two weeks.
Officials from Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) have said the news
is a smear campaign specifically timed as to occur before both presidential and
parliamentary elections due to be held later this year.
Erdogan faces little prospect of being imprisoned or even being tried as he
parliamentary immunity from prosecution which can only be lifted by a vote by
his fellow members of parliament.
