A man detained for allegedly having started one of the longest-burning wildfires of July and August in southwestern Turkey has been revealed to be involved with the youth organisation of the junior partner in Turkey’s ruling People’s Alliance, Etkin news agency (ETHA) reported on Tuesday.
Ali Y. was identified by persons who know him as a member of the grassroots youth organisation of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), known as the Grey Wolves or Idealist Hearths, according to ETHA.
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The local man from Serik, Antalya was detained after a woman from his village turned over a voice recording to the gendarmerie, daily Hürriyet reported on Monday. In the recording the man says he was paid a total of 1,250 liras ($150) to start a fire in the Manhayıt region on July 28.
“If you are caught say you are a drug addict or a drunk and that you don’t remember anything,” the men who paid him advised the 40-year-old, according to the recording.
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Özlem T. said Ali Y. had also told her that he started the fire when they met in person on Aug. 1.
In his testimony Ali Y. said he had lied to impress Özlem T., and that on the day of the phone call he had drunk heavily and sniffed glue.
“My brother is a blabber. When he drinks he says he did whatever big thing happened at the time,” his brother Alaattin Y. told the authorities, according to daily Sözcü.
Before claims that he was a pro-government nationalist surfaced, a channel run by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s in-laws, A Haber, broadcast the recording.
Ferhat Aksoy, chairman of the Idealist Hearths in Antalya, denied the claims and said the articles on the matter were “lies spoken without honour or basis in reality”, in a message posted on Twitter on Wednesday.
Aksoy said the claims had come from media companies “funded by the National Endowment for Democracy”, alluding to recent discussions on foreign funds supporting independent news organisations in Turkey.
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