İlhan İşbilen (born 1 April 1946) is a Turkish businessman and former Justice and Development Party (AKP) politician.

Biography

He resigned from AKP in February 2014. İşbilen was charged under terrorism offences, accused of being a senior member of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization ( FETÖ). He was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment for his leading role in the 2016 Turkish coup attempt which resulted in the deaths of 251 people. He denied all charges against him. He married Nebahat Evyap Isbilen, her family founded the Evyap Group, a major Turkish soap and personal care company, while both were in their 60s, allegedly upon the instruction of Islamic preacher

Fethullah Gülen Muhammed Fethullah Gülen (27 April 1941 – 20 October 2024) was a Turkish Ulama, Muslim scholar, preacher, and leader of the Gülen movement who as of 2016 had millions of followers. Gülen was an influential Neo-Ottomanism, neo-Ottomanist, A ...

, leader of FETÖ. Her name had also came up in the

Panama Papers The Panama Papers () are 11.5 million leaked documents (or 2.6 terabytes of data) published beginning April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. These document ...

, which showed she transferred a large amount of money to offshore accounts in the

tax haven A tax haven is a term, often used pejoratively, to describe a place with very low tax rates for Domicile (law), non-domiciled investors, even if the official rates may be higher. In some older definitions, a tax haven also offers Bank secrecy, ...

British Virgin Islands The British Virgin Islands (BVI), officially the Virgin Islands, are a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, to the east of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands and north-west ...

before the Turkish courts ordered a freeze on the assets of the couple following the FETÖ investigation. On 15 November 2019 his wife Nebahat transferred to

Prince Andrew, Duke of York Prince Andrew, Duke of York (Andrew Albert Christian Edward; born 19 February 1960) is a member of the British royal family. He is the third child and second son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and a younger bro ...

£750,000 described as a wedding gift for

Princess Beatrice Princess Beatrice, Mrs Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi (Beatrice Elizabeth Mary; born 8 August 1988) is a member of the British royal family. She is the elder daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Sarah, Duchess of York. She is a niece of King Ch ...

, his eldest daughter, in the belief that it would help her to secure a U.K. passport after she fled the Turkey. She wanted help moving her assets out of Turkey.Selman Turk: the exiled businessman who gave Prince Andrew money
The Guardian, 5 April 2022 The Duke repaid the funds. Further payments of £350,000, were made to Prince Andrew and £25,000 were paid to his younger daughter

Princess Eugenie Princess Eugenie, Mrs Jack Brooksbank ( ; Eugenie Victoria Helena; born 23 March 1990) is a member of the British royal family. She is the younger daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Sarah, Duchess of York. She is a niece of King Cha ...

and £225,000 to his ex-wife,

Sarah, Duchess of York Sarah, Duchess of York (born Sarah Margaret Ferguson; 15 October 1959), also known by the nickname Fergie, is a British author, philanthropist, television personality, and member of the extended British royal family. She is the former wife of P ...

, on the directives of Selman Turk.Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie have been dragged into a multimillion-dollar fraud accusations involving their father Prince Andrew, report says
, BI, 5 April 2022 Selman Turk founded Heyman AI, the company that won a Award from Prince Andrew at a Pitch@Palace event at

St James's Palace St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in London, England. The palace gives its name to the Court of St James's, which is the monarch's royal court, and is located in the City of Westminster. Although no longer the principal residence ...

on 6 November 2019 and later liquidated. The media in Turkey to labeled Turk as a “banker for FETÖ”.

References

1946 births Living people Members of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey Justice and Development Party (Turkey) politicians Turkish businesspeople {{Turkey-politician-stub