HDP official: President's advisor thinks he is the judge

The parliamentary deputy chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) criticized Turkish President's chief advisor Mehmet Ucum over his remarks about the closure case against HDP.

"It looks like AKP made him forget everything, made him forget that he is a lawyer," Meral Danis Bestas said on Tuesday,

Ucum told mainstream media Haberturk on Monday, a day before the hearing of the prosecutor in the Constitutional Court, that "HDP's closure is expected."

He said:

"HDP is under the mandate of terror. The parliament of this country cannot tolerate politics that is under the mandate of terror (...) If the Constitutional Court will deliver a judgement in accordance with the norms, a closure is expected."

Bestas, a lawyer by profession, said in response:

"I know Mehmet Ucum from the days when he was a rights defender. I know him from his work concerning children who had been subjected to rights violations in the context of the anti-terror law, and from his stance during the solution process. However, the remarks he made yesterday once more reminded me that AKP [the ruling Justice and Development Party] made him forget everything. I think he also forgot that he is a lawyer. He now stands right at the opposite side of where he earlier stood."

She continued:

"Even if Ucum forgot everything he previously knew, he still knows that his remarks signify instructions to the Constitutional Court, that because of his official status they influence the court, will have an impact on the verdict, will pressurize the judges."

Bestas added:

"Is Mehmet Ucum the chief prosecutor of the high appeal court? Is he the president of the Conxtitutional Court? Or is he one of the members of the court? This peculiar spirit of the [presidential] palace makes him see himself and act as the judge."