TM Editorial
From the Netherlands, where he now resides after being released from custody in March, the former finance chief of slain Turkish Cypriot casino boss Halil Falyalı has made detailed claims implicating Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan in an alleged attempt to recover sensitive video recordings said to involve senior government figures.
In a series of interviews with Turkish Cypriot journalist Ayşemden Akın of the Bugün Kıbrıs newspaper, Cemil Önal, who managed slain Turkish Cypriot casino boss Halil Falyalı’s finances for years, described a money laundering and illegal betting operation with links stretching from Cyprus to Dubai and Belarus.
The more politically sensitive revelations, however, were not about the criminal enterprise itself. It was the collection of alleged blackmail videos.
Önal, detained in the Netherlands for 16 months and later released under protection after reportedly sharing evidence with Dutch and US authorities, claims that Turkey’s foreign minister, Fidan, sent an envoy to retrieve 45 videos allegedly containing compromising material involving figures from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The envoy, Yasin Ekrem Serim — then Turkey’s ambassador to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) — was appointed in 2024, and Önal claims it was solely to recover the full blackmail archive from Falyalı’s widow. Serim, a close family associate of Erdoğan and son of his long-serving...
The Western Australian government has issued a stern warning to the state’s solar industry over potentially misleading promotions and “false claims” about the soon-to-launch residential battery re...