Sex Fraud: Turkish Muslim TV Preacher Jailed 1,000 Years

By Dayo Badmus

A Turkish Muslim Televangelist who surrounded himself with scantily-clad women on TV has been jailed for more than 1,000 years on Monday for sex crimes, local media had reported.

Adnan Oktar preached conservative views while women he called his “kittens” — many of whom appeared to have had plastic surgery — danced around him in the TV studio.

The 64-year-old was detained in June 2018 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 reported.

Some 236 suspects have been on trial in the case, 78 of whom are under arrest, according to the official Anadolu news agency.

The hearings have featured lurid details and harrowing sex crime allegations.

Oktar told the presiding judge in December that he had close to 1,000 girlfriends.

“There is an overflowing of love in my heart for women. Love is a human quality. It is a quality of a Muslim,” he said in another hearing in October.

He added on another occasion, “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