Turkish police on Tuesday detained the wife of opposition lawmaker Ahmet Şık on suspicion of having committed espionage, prompting his party to accuse the government of targeting his family to silence his questions about a multibillion-dollar investment fund scandal, the BirGün daily reported.
Yonca Verdioğlu Şık was taken from her home in İstanbul’s Beyoğlu district and brought to the İstanbul courthouse in Çağlayan after a medical check.
The investigation concerns alleged “political or military espionage,” but the reports did not specify what conduct she was accused of.
Verdioğlu Şık is the Turkey program coordinator for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a German political foundation affiliated with the Greens that works on environmental protection, democracy and human rights.
Her husband, Ahmet Şık, an İstanbul deputy for the left-wing Workers’ Party of Turkey (TİP), has recently pressed ministers for answers about whether politically connected investors received preferential treatment in a multibillion-dollar investment fund scandal.
Through parliamentary questions and a series of posts on X, he has challenged the government’s handling of the case and questioned the conduct of Justice Minister Akın Gürlek.
The scandal erupted in September when investment funds could not meet withdrawal requests, affecting nearly half a million individual investors and triggering investigations into suspected market manipulation. Turkey’s securities regulator ordered the liquidation of 131 funds managed by seven companies.
The case has attracted the scrutiny of figures linked to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Former family minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya, until recently a senior AKP official, was jailed pending trial Friday on charges of violating the capital markets law and belonging to a criminal organization. She has denied any wrongdoing.
Şık’s questions have included whether officials or their relatives gained privileged access to funds and withdrew large sums before ordinary investors found themselves unable to recover their money. He has also challenged restrictions on reporting about the scandal.
TİP said Tuesday that Şık had repeatedly received threats demanding that he stop pursuing the case.
It called the allegation against his wife fabricated and urged supporters to gather for a vigil at the courthouse.
The detention came a day after TİP leader Erkan Baş told a parliamentary committee that Şık’s family and friends had been targeted after the lawmaker submitted questions to ministers and posted about the scandal on social media.
Speaking during a review of the Justice Ministry’s 2027 budget on Monday, Baş alleged that the release of Şık’s jailed friend Ahmet Saymadi had been offered in exchange for deleting a social media post.
“They say, ‘Let Ahmet delete that tweet, and we’ll release his friend,’” Baş said.
He described the alleged bargaining as “mafia justice.”
Saymadi was detained following a police raid on a restaurant in Beyoğlu and jailed pending trial on October 5 on an allegation of facilitating drug use.
Journalist Barış Terkoğlu previously reported that no drugs were found at the restaurant and that prosecutors questioned Saymadi about financial transactions with Şık. Terkoğlu suggested that the case could be linked to the lawmaker’s statements about the fund scandal.
In its statement Tuesday, TİP alleged that people close to Gürlek had conveyed threats concerning the safety of Şık’s relatives and friends. The party also accused the minister of directing the action against Yonca Verdioğlu Şık.
TİP said Gürlek had not responded to the threats raised by Baş at the committee hearing.
Şık’s allegations have also prompted censorship and legal threats. An İstanbul court blocked articles in October covering his questions about political connections to the crisis.
One article concerned his allegation that Gürlek and his wife occupied an expensive İstanbul apartment with rent paid by others. Gürlek’s lawyer denied the allegation, saying the couple lived in government-provided housing, and announced legal action against Şık.
TİP called on parliamentary leaders and other officials to intervene over Verdioğlu Şık’s detention.
“You cannot intimidate us with detentions, fabricated trials, lies, slander and threats,” the party said.
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
