Metin Kulunk, a member of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), has allegedly provided money to a boxing gang in Germany to organize protests against the Armenian Genocide resolution passed by the Bundestag, Deutche Welle reports citing local media.
On June 2, 2016, a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide passed almost unanimously in the German Bundestag. In response, Turkey recalled its ambassador in Berlin and Germany’s Turkish community held protests in several German cities.
The Turkish parliamentarian has reportedly ordered the gang to buy weapons, organize protests and go after critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A close confidant of Erdogan, Kulunk directly and indirectly provided money to the Turkish nationalist Osmanen Germania, according to an investigation by ZDF-Magazin Frontal 21 and the Stuttgarter Nachrichten.
The investigation was based on German police phone taps and surveillance of the group leaked to the news organizations.
It suggests a relationship between Osmanen Germania and Kulunk, as well as the Turkish intelligence agency MIT, the AKP’s European lobby and Erdogan himself.
In June 2016, specialists from the Hamburg criminal office observed Kulunk personally hand the former leader of the gang two envelopes in Berlin. The envelopes were believed to be full of money.
Moments later Kulunk called Erdogan and organized protests against the Armenian Genocide resolution in the German parliament. Osmanen Germania participated in the protests.