A lawyer denies a Kosovo man’s alleged ties to Mossad

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — A lawyer representing the family of a man from Kosovo who was arrested in Turkey for allegedly transferring money to Mossad operatives there insisted on Wednesday that the suspect is innocent and offered the family’s cooperation in the investigation.

The suspect, identified as Liridon Rexhepi, entered Turkey on Aug. 25, and was detained last Friday and formally arrested on Tuesday, the Anadolu Agency said. The report said he had confessed during interrogation that he conducted the money transfers.

Since January, Turkish authorities have detained dozens of people on charges of collecting data on individuals, mostly Palestinians residing in Turkey, for the Israeli intelligence.

Israel has not commented on the arrests in Turkey.

In the Kosovar capital of Pristina, lawyer Arianit Koci said Rexhepi’s family is “shocked by this arrest” and convinced that he has “nothing to do with these charges.”

“Both the family and Liridon are ready to fully cooperate with authorities” he told The Associated Press, adding that “due to the sensitivity of the case, for the moment there is no information that I can share with the public.”

“We are convinced that our brother is innocent because we have never been involved in the above-mentioned claims, neither we as a family nor Liridon,” Koci wrote on Facebook.

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been one of the strongest critics of Israel’s military actions in the war-torn coastal enclave and has praised Palestinian Hamas militants as a liberation group.

In May, Turkey halted all trade with Israel and has also applied to participate in a genocide case against Israel at an international court.

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Semini reported from Tirana, Albania. Follow Llazar Semini at https://x.com/lsemini