Syriac MP for Mardin Tuma Çelik: “New evidence of the conspiracy against me has been revealed”

MARDIN / ANKARA – Syriac Member of Turkish Parliament for Mardin Tuma Çelik claims he has presented new evidence to the prosecutor’s office regarding the allegations of sexual abuse made against him. According to a legal defense report prepared by him and his legal team in the case of lifting his parliamentarian immunity, MP Çelik claims that the new evidence contains correspondence about how the complainant D.K. consciously targeted Çelik for benefits.

Syriac MP Çelik, through his lawyers, submitted the report to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office charged with conducting the investigation in his case. He repeated his earlier statements that the allegations against him were unfounded and that there was a conspiracy against him. He demanded the investigation against him to be closed.

New evidence on file allegedly refutes complainant D.K.’s claims

Relatives and friends of the complainant D.K. handed over social media correspondence related to the alleged incident. According to the correspondence, D.K. started to correspond with Çelik months before she met him where D.K. had previously claimed in the case that she had met Çelik already before the parliamentary elections. However, the correspondence that now has emerged and brought forward by the defendant in the case, seems to indicate that D.K. did only meet Çelik months after the parliamentary elections.

In the defense report submitted to the case file and investigation, Çelik says there was correspondence in which D.K. wrote that she liked Çelik but wanted to take revenge because she could not get a response from him.

In previous statements, D.K. had said that she had a fall out with her family after the alleged incident and that she was divorced. In the correspondence now presented by the defense, she wrote that she already had a bad relationship with her family before and that she was going to get divorced.

In the report submitted to the prosecutor by Çelik’s lawyers, his legal team also points out that D.K. had tried to establish similar relationships as evidenced from social media conversations she had with different people in order to gain benefits from them.

Çelik: The case should close

The report by Çelik’s lawyers pointed out that the allegations were unfounded and they demanded that with their new evidence the case against their client be closed. Upon the submitted evidence, the prosecutor has requested that complainant D.K.’s correspondence and means of communications be examined.

Çelik defended himself despite his parliamentarian immunity

Syriac MP Çelik submitted his defense to the prosecutor’s office without waiting for the pending decision by Turkish parliament regarding the lifting of his immunity. Çelik in his defense report emphasized that the allegations against him were unfounded. He pointed out that D.K. had asked him for money at every opportunity. Çelik’s legal team handed in the following statements about what happened;

“The complainant requested a house and enough money from the client by telling the client that she had problems with her husband and wanted to leave him. But she could not financially support herself, so she needed a house and enough money to live on. The client tried to explain to the complainant that she had misunderstood him and that he could not help her in this matter but that he could do his best to solve her problems with her husband and children.”

“The complainant built up her requests very professionally and makes slander in order to take advantage of the people she has entrapped. This is obvious from the correspondence we have provided in the attachment.”

“In the file in case, there was no sexual intercourse. It is the complainant who tries to exploit the client financially. She sent him messages that may amount to harassment of the client and she wanted to benefit from the client’s political environment. The complainant has repeatedly requested the resignation of our client from parliament. She first requested to live together, and then she demanded money and a house.”

In his defense, Syriac MP Tuma Çelik repeated that he had been constantly harassed by D.K. and that legal measures for harassment were taken but that the legal process was stopped at the request of D.K.’s relatives. Stating that the allegations against him were unfounded, Tuma Çelik demanded that the investigation be closed.