Ahmet Tugcu, the leader of the north’s electricity authority Kib-Tek’s employees’ trade union El-Sen, on Friday announced he had filed two lawsuits against ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel over a fracas between the pair at the Teknecik power station near Kyrenia in August.
Tugcu has filed the lawsuits asking for compensation after Ustel had allegedly shouted “I will finish you, you bastard” at him during the confrontation, before telling police to “arrest this bastard”.
On Friday, he said, “you can become prime minister, but that does not give you the right to insult people, nor does it give you the right to have people arbitrarily arrested, nor does it give you the right to issue threats.
“There is no room for such arbitrariness in these lands. This is supposed to be a place governed by the rule of law. The lawsuits I filed are for this reason.”
El-Sen lawyer Serkan Mesutoglu said “nobody’s freedom and honour is decided between the prime minister’s lips.
“I hope that the results of these cases will show that whether elected or appointed, your boundaries are drawn by law.”
Meanwhile on Friday, newspaper Yeni Duzen alleged that on the night of the confrontation, Ustel had been drunk.
The confrontation had come about after the north’s ‘government’ had ordered workers from Turkish private energy company Aksa to enter the publicly run Teknecik power station to fix longstanding faults.
However, El-Sen has long objected to Aksa’s involvement in the north’s power supply, and particularly what they perceive as growing efforts to increase Aksa’s presence at Teknecik and on the publicly run side of the north’s grid.
As a result, when the Aksa workers arrived at Teknecik on Thursday night, they found the power station’s entrance blocked by El-Sen members.
The Aksa workers were then joined Ustel, who earlier the same day had held a meeting at Teknecik with Kib-Tek board members and local police, after which he raised the possibility of the power station being “sabotaged”.
When Ustel arrived at Teknecik that night, there was a face-to-face confrontation between him and high-ranking members of El-Sen, though there are conflicting stories as to what happened.
A video taken by El-Sen member Huseyin Peksever, which circulated social media in the ensuing hours and days, appears to show Ustel shouting “I will pull the rug from under you” at Tugcu.
Meanwhile, newspaper Yeni Duzen reported that Ustel had at some point during the confrontation shouted, “I will finish you, you bastard!” before telling police to “arrest this bastard”.
Newspaper Kibris reported that Tugcu had physically assaulted Ustel, though the fact that he was released so quickly after his arrest suggests this is unlikely to have been the case.
Tugcu was arrested following the altercation, with Ustel then making an impromptu speech to reporters, asking, “is it a coincidence that five generators broke down at the same time?
Tugcu was released by the police in the early hours of Friday morning, three hours after his initial arrest, saying upon his release that “I was held for three hours so Unal Ustel would be happy.”
He added that no charges had been brought against him, and that his arrest had been aimed at “calming the situation down”.
Opposition party CTP leader Tufan Erhurman then arrived on the scene, calling on Ustel to “either prove your claim of ‘sabotage’ or resign.
“You are responsible for proving the claim. Whoever committed the sabotage will pay the price, but if there is no sabotage, there is only one price that can be paid; you will pay for it, you will resign and you will leave,” he said.
He then added, “we saw that the person who holds the office of prime minister called someone a bastard”.
