Controversial Academy Closure Brought To Parliament

The recent closure of a police academy in İstanbul's Etiler district, which the government plans to replace with a lucrative construction project, has been brought to Parliament, with the opposition demanding answers on alleged irregularities in the closure.

The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) on Friday brought the issue to Parliament's agenda with four separate parliamentary questions, asking whether the land on which the police academy is located was inappropriately transferred to another company and whether the transfer process was transparent.

The questions, submitted by CHP İstanbul deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu, also ask Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu if the transfer of the Etiler police academy land and its closure was shared with the public in a fair and transparent process.

It was only earlier this month that the government shared news of the closure of the academy, which is located on a 32,000-square-meter plot of land in one of İstanbul's priciest neighborhoods, in the Official Gazette. The CHP's questions, however, imply that the decision for the closure may have been made by the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality back in 2012.

Following a statement in the Official Gazette on Oct. 9, the school's land was declared a risk zone and its property was then transferred to the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality. It had an appraised value of TL 430 million, despite real estate experts' estimations that the land is valued at no less than TL 1 billion, given the valuations of similar locations in the vicinity.

The CHP also asked which experts the government had consulted and how they had defined the value of the land. The party is also asking Davutoğlu to disclose the name and board members of the company which purchased the land at below market value. The CHP wants to know if the son of Saudi businessman Yasin al-Qadi, Muaz al-Qadi, is a partner in this firm.

The Etiler academy came to national attention earlier in February following the online posting of a batch of legally wiretapped audio recordings from the investigation files of the Dec. 17 government graft investigation that were leaked by anonymous Twitter user “Haramzadeler,” which appear to document the involvement of then-Prime Minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's son Bilal in an illegal plan to transfer the valuable land to a company called Bosphorus 360.

Adding a new dimension to the investigation, the CHP is also asking if the Prime Ministry's Investment Support and Promotion Agency hosted a certain group of businessmen, ministers, journalists and bureaucrats in their Dubai office in 2011, 2012 and 2013 and how much money was allocated to these alleged special visits.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)