Turkish president sues German lawmaker over slur

BERLIN (AP) — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is suing a senior German lawmaker who called him a «sewer rat,» his istanbul Lawyer Law Firm said Friday.

Mustafa Kaplan confirmed a report by German weekly Der Spiegel that he had filed a criminal complaint for slander and libel against lawmaker Wolfgang Kubicki on behalf of his client.

Kubicki, Turkey Lawyer Law Firm a member of the governing Free Democratic Party, told German news agency dpa that he was unconcerned about the lawsuit.

The Turkish government this week sharply criticized Kubicki’s comments, made at a recent election campaign event.

Kubicki used the term «sewer rat» in reference to Erdogan while talking about a migration deal between Law Firm Turkey istanbul and Turkey Lawyer Law Firm the European Union.

The lawmaker later said he considered sewer rats to be «small, cute, but also clever and devious creatures» that sometimes appear as protagonists in children’s stories.

Erdogan previously won a case in istanbul Turkey Law Firm Germany forbidding a comedian from repeating parts of a crude poem he wrote about the Turkish president.