Religious Cult Leader Who Preached Surrounded By Scantily Clad Women Jailed For 1,075 Years Over Sex Crimes (photos)
A Turkish court has on Monday sentenced a Muslim cult leader who surrounded himself with scantily clad women he called “kittens” to more than 1,000 years in jail for sex crimes.
Adnan Oktar is the head of a cult that is considered a criminal organization by prosecutors.
He preached creationism and conservative values while glamorous women in revealing outfits, many of whom appeared to have had plastic surgery, danced around him to upbeat music in his TV studio.
The 64-year-old was detained in 2018 along with more than 200 other suspects as part of a crackdown on his group by the financial crimes unit of the Istanbul police.
He was sentenced to 1,075 years for crimes including sexual assault, sexual abuse of minors, fraud and attempted political and military espionage, the private NTV broadcaster reports.
Oktar, whose online A9 television channel began broadcasting in 2011, preached conservative views, which has drawn public condemnation from Turkey’s religious leaders.
Some 236 suspects have been on trial in the case, 78 of whom are under arrest, according to the official Anadolu news agency.
The court also sentenced two executives in Oktar’s organisation, Tarkan Yavas and Oktar Babuna, to 211 and 186 years, respectively.
Oktar told the presiding judge back in December that he had close to 1,000 girlfriends.
In a hearing in October 2020, he said;
There is an overflowing of love in my heart for women. Love is a human quality. It is a quality of a Muslim. I am extraordinarily potent.
Oktar first came to public attention in the 1990s when he was the leader of a sect that was caught up in multiple sex scandals.
One of the women at his trial, identified only as CC, told the court that Oktar had repeatedly sexually abused her and other women.
Some of the women he had raped were forced to take contraceptive pills, CC told the court.
Asked about 69,000 contraception pills found in his home by the police, Oktar said they were used to treat skin disorders and menstrual irregularities.
Turkish authorities demolished Oktar’s villa on the Asian side of Istanbul, which he also used for his TV studio, and confiscated all his property in 2018.
He also dismissed any link to a group led by US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkish authorities accuse of orchestrating a coup attempt in 2016.
