Former minister accuses Turkish nationalist party leader of being an intel agent

Duvar English

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A former minister has accused Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli of being an agent of Turkey's National Intelligence Agency (MİT).

Yaşar Okuyan, who is also a former MHP deputy, said that Bahçeli is always on duty for the MİT, adding that he has a letter from Alparslan Türkeş, the MHP's founder, on the issue.

"I have a handwritten letter from Türkeş. Those who are willing can check it and see that Türkeş wrote, 'Devlet Bahçeli is a MİT agent,'" Okuyan said in an interview, adding that he knows the MHP leader for over 40 years.

According to Okuyan, a similar letter was also sent to "a friend of ours."

He then went on to list a number of cases that Bahçeli was not tried, with one being the massive trial of MHP members in the 1980s with 564 suspects.

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"A total of 220 of those were tried with the execution demand. Everyone was tried, but not Bahçeli," Okuyan said.

When asked whether Bahçeli denied working with MİT, Okuyan said, "No and that's also interesting."

"The issue was the subject of a major debate in the party congress 10 years ago. He made his lawyer ask for a document from MİT that said, 'Our records didn't show the individual named Devlet Bahçeli as working for us,'" he added.

Okuyan made similar remarks in 2017.

"I've never seen Bahçeli as a MHP member and I talk based on proof. In one of the letters Türkeş gave me, he said, 'Where did this Devlet Bahçeli guy come from, he has links to the MİT. Send him away,'" he said at the time.