New Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag, who was appointed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on January 28, 2022, was under investigation by counter-terrorism prosecutors in 2014 for aiding and inciting al-Qaeda, NordicMonitor reports.

Bozdag's investigation was launched by the prosecutor's office in the province of Adana, located near the Syrian border, after he was involved in an investigation into the illegal supply of weapons to jihadist groups in Syria.

The cargo, delivered on the Turkish-Syrian border from Ankara by Turkish intelligence agents MIT, was intercepted on January 1, 2014 by local law enforcement agencies and investigated by the prosecutor's office.

Evidence of how Bozdag defended the illegal supply of weapons to jihadists was found among thousands of documents classified by the Erdogan government. While prosecutors and local law enforcement searched for a credible lead to uncover what was believed to be an al-Qaeda arms shipment, the Erdogan government's inner circle attempted to close the investigation and get the weapons to their destination in Syria unhindered.