The former leader of Türkiye’s main opposition party is being sued again by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on top of an ongoing case for what his lawyer called “misusing his right to defense to violate the president’s personal rights.”
“Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has abused his right to defense by creating a false sense of victimhood through a trial in which we have withdrawn our complaint and not demanded any punishment or a political ban, in order to seriously violate the president’s personal rights,” Erdoğan’s lawyer Hüseyin Aydın said Monday in a statement on X.
Kılıçdaroğlu stood trial on Friday in a case filed due to a criminal complaint by Erdoğan for his accusations toward then-Prime Minister Erdoğan in the Dec. 17-25, 2013 operations.
Since then, investigations have revealed the said operation was a plot led by the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ) to topple the government, the group’s first such attempt before its second, bloodier attempt was also foiled in July 2016.
Kılıçdaroğlu, who held the Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) reins from 2010 to his ouster in 2023 months after he lost his final presidential election against Erdoğan, has insisted on blaming the president for the FETÖ bid, similar to the many accusations he hurls against him and other politicians daily.
He called on his supporters to join him in the hearing at an Ankara court where he repeated his accusations against Erdoğan.
The Turkish president, who filed several criminal complaints against Kılıçdaroğlu in the past decade over similar “slanderous” remarks, dropped all cases against him in 2016, right after the defeated July 15 coup attempt in an effort to achieve “minimum courtesy.”
“It has become apparent that despite the past eight years that have passed, the Kılıçdaroğlu side has not made an inch of progress in terms of minimum political courtesy. On the contrary rudeness and a distasteful manner has become a behavioral trait,” Aydın wrote.
He similarly described Kılıçdaroğlu’s account in Friday’s hearing as an attempt to “create a false sense of victimhood.”
“Due to his remarks that constituted only a summary of his insults and slanders against the president, we have filed a criminal complaint at the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Ankara, as well as a lawsuit for immaterial compensation of TL 500,000 at the Civil Court of First Instance,” Aydın announced.
Pundits have argued that Kılıçdaroğlu’s recent remarks are an attempt to boost his popularity within the CHP and regain lost favor for his return to the political fold. The CHP has been grappling with internal divisions since last year’s general elections.