Eight
women and two underage girls, all of whom were believed to be prostitutes, were
taken for health checks after authorities in the Mediterranean city of Antalya
confiscated the 136-meter Savarona, state-run Anatolian news agency reported.
Eight
people, including two women, remain in custody, it said.
The
Savarona had been leased to a businessman by the Finance Ministry.
"I
gave the necessary instructions for the cancellation of the ship's lease,"
Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek told Anatolian, adding the Culture Ministry
should now take ownership of the vessel.
"If
the company does not agree on the cancellation of the ship's license, we will
take the case to court and make the effort to have it annulled by a court
ruling."
Anatolian
said leaders of the sex-ring charged clients between $3,000 and $10,000 for a
night with the prostitutes, who came from Russia and Ukraine.
Ataturk,
a war hero who founded Turkey from the ashes of the defeated Ottoman Empire, is
Turkey's most respected figure. Statues and portraits of the warrior statesman
are ubiquitous, and insults to his memory are punishable with a jail sentence.
Turkey
bought the Savarona in 1938, and Ataturk spent a few weeks aboard the yacht but
died later that year.
Mehmet
Sevigen, a member of Parliament from the opposition CHP party founded by
Ataturk, said the Culture Ministry should turn the yacht into a museum as soon
as possible.
"The
prostitution scandal on the ship is a major impertinence to the memory of
Ataturk," Sevigen said.
