Turkey Issues Arrest Warrant For Enes Kanter Accusing Him Of Being A Terrorist
Last week, Oklahoma City Thunder center Enes Kanter was being detained in Romania after his passport was “canceled” by the Turkish embassy. Kanter had previously criticized the Turkish president (dictator) Recep Erdogan.
I'm being held at Romanian airport by Police!! pic.twitter.com/uYZMBqKx54
— Enes Kanter FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) May 20, 2017
He later explained what exactly happened, and how things went down:
“Around 2:30 something my manager knocked on my door and then I opened it and he’s like we need to talk. I was like okay and then I went to his room. Start talking and he’s like we have a problem. I said what’s the problem? He said Turkish government or embassy called Indonesia and said Enes Kanter’s there and he’s a dangerous man and we need to talk to him. And they sent the secret service and the army to the school I just had a basketball clinic with.
I have friends in Malaysia that were getting kidnapped and deported back to Turkey. If they deport me back to Turkey it will be ugly. So that’s why I was talking to my manager like what should we do? And he was like okay, we need to leave the country.
We look at the flights. The first flight was Singapore at 5:30 AM so we kinda escaped the country. At 5:30 and when the plane took off I was like, thank God. Then we went to Singapore hung out there for a couple hours, whatever, then went to Romania and that’s where all the craziness started.”
Thankfully, Kanter was eventually released and was able to make it back to the US. He then immediately said that he was planning on applying for U.S. citizenship.
Now, according to various reports, Turkey has issued an arrest warrant for Kanter, claiming he is a member of a terrorist organization. Via AFP:
Turkey issued an arrest warrant on Friday for Turkish NBA star Enes Kanter, accusing him of being a member of a “terror group”, a pro-government newspaper reported.
A judge issued the arrest warrant after an Istanbul prosecutor opened an investigation into Kanter’s alleged “membership of an armed terrorist organisation”, Sabah daily reported.
Sabah daily added that the prosecutor would apply for an Interpol red notice — to inform Interpol’s 190 members that someone’s arrest is sought and thus ensure their deportation — to the justice ministry.