PoisoningMeals served to Turkey’s president Erdogan tested for poison
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has implemented strict new measures to protect his personal security. One of these measures: Every meal he is served – both at home and abroad — is rigorously tested to make sure it does not contain any poisonous materials inserted by a would-be assassin. Dr. Cevdet Erdol, Erdogan’s personal physician, said that a special food analysis laboratory will be built at Erdogan’s lavish presidential palace to make sure all his food is safe to eat. “It’s usually not through bullets that prominent figures are being assassinated these days,” Erdol told the Hurriyet newspaper on Tuesday.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has implemented strict new measures to protect his personal security. One of these measures: Every meal he is served – both at home and abroad — is rigorously tested to make sure it does not contain any poisonous materials inserted by a would-be assassin.
Dr. Cevdet Erdol, Erdogan’s personal physician, said that a special food analysis laboratory will be built at Erdogan’s lavish presidential palace to make sure all his food is safe to eat.
“It’s usually not through bullets that prominent figures are being assassinated these days,” Erdol told the Hurriyet newspaper on Tuesday.
The Guardian quotes Erdol to say that currently, samples of the president’s food are analyzed in laboratories in both Ankara and Istanbul and during his visits abroad.
Erdogan’s political opponents accuse him of increasing megalomania – and paranoia.
Erdogan’s new presidential palace, which opened last October, consists of three buildings – the presidential palace itself and two large support building. The complex has a total of 1,150 rooms. In response to critics who questioned to size of the palace, Erdogan insisted that the president’s residential quarters were :nothing special,” since they comprise only 250 rooms.
The two support buildings are used for meetings with visiting heads of state and dignitaries. The complex covers an area of 300,000 m2 (3,200,000 sq ft), and features additional guesthouses, a botanical garden, a situation room with satellite and military communications systems, bunkers able to withstand biological, nuclear, and chemical weapons attack, a park, and a congress center. There is also a 4,000-person capacity mosque on the grounds.
Dr. Erdol said a fully equipped lab will soon be built at the complex, where every dish served to Erdogan or a member of his family will be inspected by medically qualified professionals. Just in case, the complex also has a five-member medical emergency team on duty around the clock.
All food brought into the complex is analyzed for signs of radiation, chemical materials, and bacteria.
“Fortunately, we have not had any serious incidents so far,” Erdol said, adding that the food was bought only from trusted sources.
Political assassinations are not unknown in Turkey. The country’s eighth president, Turgut Ozal, survived an assassination attempt in 1988 when a gunman shot him at a social even in the house of parliament. When he died in office in 1993 of an unknown cause, his family contended that he was poisoned.
In 2012 an investigative court rejected the poisoning theory.
Bulent Ecevit, who served as Turkey’s prime minister five different times and who died in 2006, survived nine assassination attempts.
In January, as part of the increased security measures, Erdogan appointed Ibrahim Saracoglu, a professor of biochemistry and microbiology known for his research on the healing effects of plants, as one of his personal security advisers.
