Vote cast for Turkish deputy in parliament when he was in UK

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A vote was cast in the absence of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Alpay Özalan, with the incident surfacing when the lawmaker shared a selfie from the United Kingdom.

Özalan was attending the opening of a mosque in Cambridge with a delegation from Turkey, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, when parliament was voting on a bill regarding thermal power plants on Dec. 5.

A voting paper was submitted under Özalan's name, but the vote wasn't counted as valid when the absence of the lawmaker was noticed.

When Özalan's name was read out loud in parliament, several lawmakers said that he was outside, before parliamentary deputy speaker noticed that he was not present during voting, daily Sözcü reported.

Speaking about the incident, AKP sources said that the identity of the lawmaker who sent the voting paper with Özalan's name remains unknown.

"Our friend [Özalan] was in a presidential visit. One of our friends who didn't know about the trip sent a voting paper. These things happen in parliament from time to time. Both the government and the opposition do this. There are other examples in the past," the sources told daily Hürriyet.

Following criticism, Özalan said that he didn't know about the incident.

"I don't need something like this. I was off duty because I was in a U.K. trip with our president on behalf of my party," Özalan said.