Turkey seeks to arrest Kanter
Enes Kanter is a man without a country.
The Thunder center said as much this week, but the point was underscored on Friday.
Kanter’s home nation of Turkey has issued a warrant for his arrest, said Hadis Fetic, executive assistant to the Thunder center, ensuring his arrest if he returns there.
The basis for the warrant is that Kanter has affiliated himself with the Hizmet movement, which the Turkish government considers a terrorist organization. Kanter has voiced his public support of the movement and its founder Fetullah Gulen and has been a vocal critic of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, this week comparing him to Adolf Hitler.
Though he is a Turkish citizen, Kanter is in the United States on a green card as a Lawful Permanent Resident, and he has not been charged with any crime here.
As such, he’s in no danger of arrest in the U.S., nor of being extradited to Turkey,
America has not agreed that the Gulen group is a terrorist group . ... Therefore, we can’t extradite on the basis that (Kanter) is a terrorist.”
Joshua Landis
said Joshua Landis, head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
Gulen, a Turkish preacher and political figure who founded the Hizmet movement — it’s also known as the Gulen movement — lives in exile in Saylorsburg, Penn.
The Turkish government has demanded Gulen’s extradition to Turkey, but the U.S. has not complied, and its reasoning, Landis said, also protects Kanter.
“America has not agreed that the Gulen group is a terrorist group . ... Therefore, we can’t extradite on the basis that (Kanter) is a terrorist,” he said.
The United States would require proof of terrorist activity in a court of law, Landis said, to extradite a lawful resident.
The Turkish government blames Gulen’s followers for a failed coup last year and has arrested more than 100,000 people in Turkey, accusing them of being involved in the coup attempt, Landis said last week.
After Kanter publicly criticized Erdogan last year, his parents publicly disowned him. Kanter hasn’t spoken with them since and said he fears that they would be arrested if he tried to contact them.
The Daily Sabah, a pro-government newspaper in Turkey, first reported the on the warrant for Kanter.
According to a translation by international news agency AFP, the publication said Turkey would apply for an Interpol “red notice,” which would flag Kanter as a potential terrorist.
A red notice wouldn’t affect travel within the United States, and the U.S. likely can work out an agreement with Canada, Landis said, to allow Kanter to travel to Toronto for games against the Raptors.
Kanter’s recent troubles began on his 25th birthday.
On May 20, Turkey invalidated his passport. That led to Kanter’s detainment in Bucharest, Romania, during a global tour with his Enes Kanter Light Foundation.
Kanter was detained for about four hours but ultimately was allowed to fly to London and then New York City, where he has an offseason home. Kanter said at a news conference on Monday that he will seek U.S. citizenship.
Early Friday, Kanter responded to a report of the warrant with a post on his Twitter account in Turkish. According to AFP’s translation, it said “You cannot catch me. Hahaha. Don’t waste your energy. I am already going to come (to Turkey) to spit on all of your ugly, hate-filled faces.”
But any travel to Turkey is unlikely — and would be ill-advised.
“There would have to be proof that he’s extraditable under American law, and that will not be forthcoming, obviously,” Landis said.
“On the other hand, it means he can never go home again — not as an American citizen, not as a Turkish citizen. They’re really driving home the message that, ‘You’ll never come home again.’”