Meanwhile, for three board member posts vacated at RTÜK, Parliament last month elected Professor Hasan Fendoğlu, the former chairman of the Prime Ministry's Human Rights Department, and Esat Çıplak, who is affiliated with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Davut Dursun, recommended to the board by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), was re-elected as the other RTÜK member. Some AK Party officials suggest that Fendoğlu may become the new RTÜK boss. Today will be the first day on the job for the new members. In related developments late yesterday afternoon, Cengiz Özdiker, an auditor at RTÜK, filed a criminal complaint against Akman, RTÜK board members and bureaucrats.
Özdiker accuses the individuals of “abuse of power by neglecting to collect parts of debts owed to RTÜK.” The complaint claims that the board has been easy on some television stations in collecting advertising and sponsorship fees.
Akman, who has been implicated in a case against German-based Turkish charity Deniz Feneri (Lighthouse), which also has a branch in Turkey, has been under mounting pressure from his own AK Party for some time. State Minister Bülent Arınç, who wields considerable influence inside the AK Party, called on him to resign from office on more than one occasion in June. The Deniz Feneri administration is being accused of having funneled money collected for charity from pious workers in Germany into various companies and businesses in Turkey. Three were convicted in the case. Arınç told the press in June that he had asked Akman to resign from the post as a result of the allegations against him. On June 5 the Ankara 5th Criminal Court of Peace ordered a preliminary injunction on the property and assets of 18 people who were implicated in the case, including Akman.
In September 2008 a German court convicted three Turkish men of funneling $26 million in charitable contributions raised by Deniz Feneri to conservative companies in Turkey. The Chief Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court of Appeals received copies of the proceedings of the Deniz Feneri fraud trial in Germany to investigate possible links between the ruling party and the charity organization. Akman's name was implicated in the case, but PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did not authorize the court to prosecute him. However, this decision was overruled by the Council of State in early March. The investigation is currently being carried out by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.
