Turkish court accuses IHH of having ties to Al-Qaeda

The clash between the Turkish police and judiciary, on the one hand, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the other, has been dragging on since 17 December 2013. After the police took in for questioning the sons of three ministers and the director of a major bank for money laundering, the Prime Minister denounced a supposed plot hatched against him by the spiritual leader of the Hizmet (islamic movement), Fethullah Gülen. He dismissed from their posts over 2 000 state workers, including 350 Istanbul police officers and 15 reeves.

The investigation already proved the personal links existing between Mr. Erdoğan and Yassin el-Qadi, Al-Qaeda’s banker  [1]. It is now trying to establish how the Prime Minister diverted public funds to finance Al-Qaeda in Syria and Iraq.

The police and the court conducted, on 14 January 2014, a new series of searches in the premises of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), the Muslim Brotherhood’s humanitarian agency, interrogating 23 people
suspected of ties to Al-Qaeda.

The Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) is widely known for having organized, in June 2010, the ’’Freedom Flotilla’’, which was illegally boarded and searched by the Israeli army in the Mediterranean  [2]. An Irish CIA agent, Mehdi al-Harati, was aboard the main ship, the Mavi Marmara. Al-Harati commanded the Al-Qaeda unit which laid siege to the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli during the Libyan war. He was subsequently appointed by NATO as number two of the military command in Tripoli. He resigned on 11 October 2011 to lead the jihad in the north of Syria  [3].

During the searches of the IHH offices throughout 6 provinces, the police took in for questioning Halis B., suspected of being the Al-Qaeda leader in Turkey, and İbrahim Ş., second in command of the organization in the Near-East.

Two hours after the raid, the Prime Minister dismissed two of his counter terrorist police chiefs.