The German Tageszeitung (TAZ) sees a scandal with “gray passports” in Turkey. They are issued for state officials, but it is not ruled out that they may be used by other “interested parties”.
According to the Berlin newspaper, the German police located a Turk in Hanover, who in 2020 “had invited 53 people from Turkey to an alleged conference on environmental issues, claiming that he would take care of their accommodation and their travel schedule.
According to the prosecution this was a lie, there was no schedule, no detention, nothing. In fact, 46 people entered the country by bus, but most did not even reach Hanover. (…) Within two days the group was disbanded. Only two of the participants returned to Turkey as expected, another five appeared to seek asylum in various German cities.
The rest have disappeared, their whereabouts remain unknown to this day. And that was exactly the plan of the accused, the prosecution believes “.
The accused himself claims, through his lawyers, that he inadvertently fell victim to a wider, dark circuit. The Tageszeitung speculates that he may have been unknowingly involved in an illegal gray passport circuit.
As he notes, “these are service passports issued to Turkish civil servants and other officials for official purposes, for example to participate in international meetings, conferences or training seminars, without the usual visa process.
However, it is speculated that many municipalities in Turkey have issued such passports to other persons, often to young people from the economically weaker regions of southeastern Turkey.
According to reports, those interested have paid 6,000-8,000 euros for a visa-free travel. “The ruling majority rejected the request for the case to be investigated in Parliament, as broadcast by the Turkish program of Deutsche Welle, citing a member of parliament from the opposition CHP.”
DW / Giannis Papadimitriou
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