JEDDAH — As dark clouds hover over the political future of Turkey's once strongman, his notorious past is coming to light, revealing his murky world of corruption and fraud. Official documents dating back to the 1990s in the possession of an investigative journalist, Abdullah Bozkurt, shine light on the wheeling and dealing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan indulged in his pursuit of political power. The documents divulge details of corruption and rigging of tenders Erdogan did to launch his political party when he was the mayor of Istanbul. Investigative reports prepared by the Turkey's Interior Ministry and multiple criminal indictments filed by prosecutors against Erdogan and his associates during the 1990s disclose how they had set up a criminal enterprise, embezzling public funds by abusing power and resorting to forgery of official documents, perjury and other crimes. The official reports confirm that Erdogan and his associates had devised various schemes including setting up front companies to divert municipal funds and enrich businessmen who were close to the Islamist Welfare Party, which had controlled the municipality since 1994. They also reveal practices employed by Erdogan to hire people with political Islamist backgrounds while sacking employees who were brought into the local government by his predecessors. The reports point out that Erdogan had been preparing to run for prime minister after serving as Istanbul mayor and needed funds to run his campaign as well as hire staff. So he siphoned off municipal funds through illegal means in 1994, 1995 and 1996. In total, 18 court cases were launched against Erdogan, but he managed to save himself from legal troubles when he gained parliamentary immunity after his election as a lawmaker. The documents also show Erdogan managed to avoid graft and embezzlement charges through the statute of limitations, which allowed the authorities only five years to pursue cases. For other charges, he had them fixed through loyalists he planted in the judiciary after he became prime minister and later president. However, the same practices that had enriched Erdogan, his family and his associates were later used when he consolidated his power in government. The corruption investigations that were made public in December 2013 were a perfect example revealing how multi-billion-dollar schemes were envisaged for contracts and tenders by the Erdogan government. As his wealth and assets had grown, Erdogan purged some 30 percent of all judges and prosecutors (over 4,000 people) from the Turkish judiciary in order to secure his position and not allow any criminal cases to be launched against him, his family or business and political associates. Most associates who were investigated and tried in court as accomplices were later put into important positions in government when Erdogan's newly launched Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in November 2002.
