Turkey’s Ministry of Defense said on Thursday it had filed a criminal complaint after veteran politician Doğu Perinçek claimed that Israel shot down a Turkish C-130 military cargo plane that crashed near the Georgia-Azerbaijan border in November 2025, killing 20 soldiers.

The ministry called the allegation disinformation and said legal action had been launched.

In a statement issued at its weekly briefing, the ministry said remarks by a political party leader targeting the Turkish Armed Forces for political reasons were aimed at misleading the public and contained baseless accusations unsupported by concrete evidence. It said official statements about the crash had been deliberately distorted.

The ministry also said technical examinations into the crash began immediately and were continuing. It said a final report would be shared with the public after the relevant procedures were completed.

Turkish politician Doğu Perinçek AFP PHOTO / FREDERICK FLORIN /

Perinçek, head of the ultranationalist Patriotic Party (VP), had alleged that Israel brought down the aircraft and that authorities were concealing the findings. Some Turkish media reports said he also misstated the death toll as 34, while the official toll was 20.

The plane crashed on November 11, 2025, after departing Azerbaijan. Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said later that preliminary findings suggested the aircraft’s tail may have broken off before the plane split into three pieces, but he stressed at the time that black box analysis and initial findings would take at least two months. No public final cause has yet emerged.

The crash marked Turkey’s deadliest military aviation incident in years and prompted inspections across its C-130 fleet.