Date posted: December 7, 2016

Hannah Al-Othman

• WikiLeaks has released a tranche of personal emails from the account of Turkey’s Minister of Oil Berat Albayrak
• The emails span a six-year period from 2000 to 2016 and allegedly reveal his level of influence in the country’s political scene
• The emails appear to have been obtained by Turkish hacktivist group Redhack 

WikiLeaks has released a tranche of more than 57,000 personal emails from the account of Turkey’s Minister of Oil Berat Albayrak.

Albayrak is the son-in-law of the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The emails span a six-year period from 2000 to 2016 and allegedly reveal his level of influence in the country’s political scene.

The emails appear to have been obtained by Turkish hacktivist group Redhack, and which threatened to make his communications public back in September.

The emails, which allegedly contain details of exchanges between Albayrak and the Turkish ‘ruling elite’ were briefly published earlier this year, before being taken down following a crackdown by the Turkish government.

WikiLeaks alleges that the emails reveal ‘Albayrak’s involvement in organisations such as Powertrans, the company implicated in Isis oil imports’.

The company has been implicated in oil imports from ISIS-controlled oil fields.

Turkey banned oil transportation by road or railway in or out of the country in more than five years ago, but with provision for limited exceptions such as meeting the needs of the military.

WikiLeaks claims that the Turkish government later gave Powertrans the monopoly on the transit of oil.

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, said the emails had been published in response to the Turkish government’s silencing of detractors.

He said: ‘The people of Turkey need a free media and a free internet.

‘The government’s counter-coup efforts have gone well beyond their stated purpose of protecting the state from a second Gulenist coup attempt and are now primarily used to steal assets and eliminate critics.

‘The Turkish government continues to use force to jail journalists, shut down media and restrict internet access to its citizens, depriving them of their ability to access information about their situation including by banning WikiLeaks.

‘This consolidation around the power vertical of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ultimately weakens Turkish institutionalism, leaving Turkey more susceptible to future coups by those in Erdoğan’s chain of command.’

Source: Daily Mail , December 6, 2016

Tags: Terrorism | Turkey |