The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) said it would support a motion to lift the legislative immunity of the pro-PKK Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker, who had close relations with a PKK terrorist and visited the terrorist camp in northern Iraq.
"We will vote 'Yes' ... so that investigation on this matter can proceed," Özgür Özel, the CHP’s group deputy chairperson, told reporters Wednesday.
Referring to the photo of Semra Güzel posing next to a member of the PKK terrorist group, Özel said the HDP lawmaker had made a mistake that "is not forgivable." If the motion to lift her immunity passes, she could face terrorism-related charges.
"We think Semra Güzel's photo that she took in her (terrorist) organization's clothes with a gun in hand within the borders of the Republic of Turkey was not right and is not compatible with her membership in Parliament," he said. "Then, we'll monitor the developments regarding the trial," he added.
Photos of Güzel with PKK terrorist Volkan Bora were widely circulated in Turkish media last week.
PKK terrorist Volkan Bora, code-named "Koçero Meleti," whom the HDP lawmaker claimed was her fiance, was one of the perpetrators of two terrorist attacks in Adıyaman province. He was part of the terrorist squad that killed gendarmerie Cpl. Müsellim Ünal and soldier Mücahit Şimşek on June 24, 2016, and village guard Yusuf Sönmez on Sept. 9, 2016.
Bora was killed in a counterterrorism operation in Turkey’s southeastern Adıyaman province in 2017.
A report to lift her immunity has been submitted to the Office of the Parliament Speaker, and the joint committee formed by constitution and justice committee lawmakers will debate it Thursday.
Güzel defended the pictures, claiming that she had been engaged to the terrorist and the photos were being used as "propaganda" to target her.
She said they got engaged after a romantic relationship while they were in university and that she was unable to see him between 2009 and 2014.
She claimed that she went to northern Iraq some time between 2013-2015, during the reconciliation period, to see her "loved one" and that she was not a member of a political party back then. But a witness noted that she also met with him in 2016.
The HDP has been subject to public criticism for transferring taxpayer money and funds to the PKK, an internationally recognized terrorist group. HDP mayors and local officials are known to have misallocated funds in support of the PKK and provided jobs to the group's sympathizers.