Debt collector for religious order
Güncelleme Tarihi:
The assassination of an imam and the subsequent lynching of the imam’s killer at Ismailağa Mosque has raised questions about the religious community affiliated with the mosque.
The man presented as responsible for the religious order’s organisation in Europe, Metin Balkanlıoğlu, known as ‘Abdülmetin Hoca’, has been accused of confiscating a mini-market in Ankara and threatening the life of its owner – Kasim Zengin, leader of the Sauna Gang.
In a statement given to police while awaiting trial in prison, Kasim Zengin accuses Balkanlıoğlu of confiscating his mini-market and threatening his life by putting a bomb in his mouth.
This is how he describes his relationship with Metin Balkanlıoğlu: “My father married another woman after my mother’s death, sending me to a madrasah. After 4-6 years of ‘Ebjet-ilmileddun’ education at the Acemoğlu madrasah, situated in the district of Fatih in Istanbul, I returned to Ankara, where I opened a mini-market. I invited my Hodja from the madrasah, Metin Balkanlıoğlu, and asked him to do the opening of the shop, thinking it would be a blessing. I could not pay my bills because of the economic crisis Turkey was going through during those years, so I borrowed 7000YTL from my Hodja. When I was unable to pay him back, he sent somebody named Davut Yavuz, saying, ‘He is as good as I. Hand over the market to him.’ So I did.”
“They put a bomb in my mouth”
“I went to the shop one day, and when they asked me to pay for the goods, I replied that the shop did after all belong to me, and did not want to pay. They took me down to the office where Davut Yavuz was sitting with 6 other people, 2 of whom were Chechen. They made me lie down, drawing their guns, and the two Turks in the room put a bomb in my mouth and a gun to my head.”
“I wanted to speak to my Hodja”
“I told them I wanted to speak to my Hodja, and we proceeded to phone him. He told me that I was no different from a non-believer now that I no longer had a Muslim beard or wore the traditional baggy trousers that they had taught me to wear. He said, ‘As Muslims it is permissible for us to ‘pluck a hair from a pig’; leave now and do not dirty the place with your filthy blood.’”