A Turkish court has ordered Hüda Kaya, a former deputy from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), to pay damages due to a written parliamentary inquiry she had submitted about a paramilitary organization with alleged links to the president, the Evrensel newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The court order said Kaya had violated the so-called “personal rights” of SADAT International Defense Consultancy, a company with alleged links to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. SADAT had sued Kaya for damages in civil court on allegations of libeling the company in her parliamentary questions.
In the parliamentary inquiry, she had asked Vice President Fuat Oktay questions such as whether there were any law enforcement agencies that cooperated with SADAT and whether the company was subject to any government audits.
She had also brought up the company’s alleged involvement in several domestic and international theaters, such as Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeastern provinces, Syria, Afghanistan and Libya.
SADAT, Turkey’s first domestic military consultancy firm and a paramilitary organization, was established in 2012 by former Erdoğan aide Adnan Tanrıverdi, although Erdoğan has denied having ties to the company.
The company has attracted growing scrutiny over US allegations that it trains Syrians who then are deployed to support Turkey-backed forces in war zones such as Libya.
