On Tuesday morning the police raided the premises of the Koza İpek Holding, which is critical of the government, in the capital of Ankara, as the daily owned by the group had run a story with video stills showing the illegal weapons transfer to the terrorist group on the same day.
Koza İpek Holding includes Kanaltürk, Bugün TV, the Bugün daily, İpek University and Koza Holding. The residence of Akın İpek, owner of the group, was searched by the police.
Editor-in-Chief of the Bugün daily Erhan Başyurt posted several tweets on his personal Twitter account, saying: "A police operation that aims to silence our group has started. Police raided our office. How shameful!"
"The operation has come right after we revealed the illegal shipment of weapons to ISIL," he said in another tweet.
The daily claimed the video footage shows that a large amount of materials, including explosives, construction pipes and plates, were being transferred to ISIL from Turkey's Akçakale border gate in the southeastern Şanlıurfa province, while Turkish customs officials were standing by and watching.
The interim Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government is accused of illegally sending arms to ISIL fighting against both Kurds and Syria's Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, as the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) was subjected an investigation in January of last year on charges of being the main actor in transferring weapons to ISIL.
Published on Today's Zaman, 01 September 2015, Tuesday
