Imaginary enemy created to cover up corruption, says Yıldırım

Former AK Party Burdur deputy Yıldırım says that the ruling AK Party conjured up enemies to cover up the December 17-25 corruption probe.

Speaking about the corruption probe, Burdur independent deputy Hasan Hami Yıldırım said that the December 17-25 corruption investigation proved that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has been 'systematically corrupted.'

“Everyone was aware of corruption”

Stating that he started to see for the first time the corruption in 2010, Yıldırım said, “We were hearing about the graft within some ministers. All of the deputies were aware of this in the AK Party. But I thought that corruption would be prevented if it really existed. But it wasn't, and December 17 has showed us that the corruption was systematic by the AK Party.”

“Imaginary enemy created”

Arguing that an imaginary enemy was created to cover up the corruption investigation made public on December 17 and 25, Yıldırım said “There was no other way to cover up the corruption. To cover it up, they needed an imaginary enemy and they created the ‘parallel structure’.”

The “parallel structure” is a term invented by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to refer to followers of the Hizmet movement that was inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, particularly followers within the state bureaucracy. He made the elimination of the so-called parallel structure a priority after a major corruption scandal involving people in his inner circle erupted with a wave of detentions on Dec. 17, 2013.

The president, who was then prime minister, framed the corruption investigation as a “plot against his government” by the Hizmet movement and foreign collaborators. At the same time, the government introduced laws to expand its grip on the judiciary and ban Twitter and it dismissed thousands of judges, prosecutors and police officers, including those who were involved in the investigation.

Hasan Hami Yıldırım was AK Party Burdur deputy until the last day of 2013. On the last day of 2013, Yıldırım resigned in protest of the government's response to the graft scandal.

The highly-publicized investigation, which was kicked off on Dec. 17, 2013, implicated sons of several ministers, pro-government businessmen and the CEO of the state bank. At the heart of the probe was Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, who was involved in money laundering schemes as part of his strategy to bypass US-led sanctions on Iran.

Published on BGNNews, 07 December 2014, Sunday