In a series of secretly recorded phone conversations revealed last week, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was heard instructing his son to hide from police tens of millions of dollars of cash stashed in his Istanbul house.
![Corruption Scandal May End Erdogan’s Political Career 1 Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech at a press conference in Istanbul LU ZHE/XINHUA — MCT Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/02/26/3499532/erdogan-recordings-appear-real.html#storylink=cpy](https://www.turkishnews.com/en/content/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/726-14chmM.AuSt_.91.jpeg)
This shocking revelation generated widespread calls for Erdogan’s resignation who claimed that the phone recordings are fake or edited. It appears, however, that the wiretapped conversations between the Prime Minister and his son are authentic, according to Guarded Risk, an American cyber company that conducted a comprehensive forensic analysis of the phone calls.
It is ironic that Erdogan who came to power as an Islamist with the declared aim of eliminating corruption from Turkish politics, has fallen victim to the dictum: “power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely!”
The phone calls were secretly recorded on the day police raided the homes of several cabinet members, prominent businessmen, and the head of the state bank. They were all accused of involvement in bribery and other corrupt practices.
Here is the English translation of excerpts from Erdogan’s five wiretapped conversations with his son, Bilal:
First phone call at 8:02 am on Dec. 17, 2013:
Erdogan: …Take everything you have out of your house, OK? Bilal: What would I have, dad? Your money is in the safe. Erdogan: That’s what I am talking about…. Bilal: What shall we do with it, daddy? Where shall we put it? Erdogan: In specific places, in some specific places… . Do it!
Second call at 11:17 am:
Bilal: …My brother [in-law] Berat has another idea. He says we should give some of it to Faruk [Kalyoncu, president of a construction company] for the other job, so he can process them like the previous ones. Shall we do that? We can sort out a big amount of money that way.
Third call at 3:39 pm:
Erdogan: Did you complete the tasks I gave you? Bilal: We will finish them by this evening. We sorted some out; We sorted the Berat part, now we will first handle the part with Mehmet Gur, and the rest, we will do after dark….
Fourth call at 11:15 pm:
Bilal: Hi daddy, I am calling to… we did [it] mostly. Did you call me just now, daddy? Erdogan: No I did not, you called me.
Fifth call at 10:58 am on Dec. 18, 2013:
Erdogan: I decided to call to see if there is anything new. Bilal: No, nothing. We finished the tasks you gave us, with God’s help. |
Additional recordings have since surfaced in which Erdogan and his son talk about rejecting a $10 million bribe offer from a Turkish businessman for being insufficient.
Erdogan could end up losing not only his current position and the chance of becoming President later this year, but may also face prosecution and a lengthy jail term for his alleged crimes.