Ahmet Albayrak

Ahmet Albayrak, born in 1952 in Trabzon, is a shareholder - along with his five brothers - of Albayrak Yayın Holding A.Ş. which owns Yeni Şafak, seven magazines and two TV channels. He is the Head of the Board of Directors at Albayrak Holdi̇ng A.Ş. In 2009, his phone conversations were tapped as part of an ongoing investigation, in which Albayrak can be heard making plans to change the members of the state-run Press Advertisement Agency (Basın İlan Kurumu) in order to get more advertising for Yeni Şafak and making arrangements to support AK Party in Trabzon for local elections. Albayrak group is known to have close ties to the ruling AK Party and the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The group has taken dozens of public tenders especially since the mid 90s, some of which were subject to claims and investigations of corruption.