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17th November 2022
01:12pm GMT
Fourteen of his close associates were also handed lengthy sentences.
Oktar rose to prominence thanks to the talk show he hosted on his own TV channel, in which he mixed Islamic religious debates with apocalyptic ramblings and attractive models wearing wigs and bondage-style dresses. https://twitter.com/restitutorII/status/1592883809644867584 The women associated with him were known as "kittens" and his cult boasted some 160 members at one stage, the Daily Star reports. Anthropologist Daniel Martin Varisco described the cult, which preached creationism and conservative values, as a “sexed-up Disney version of Islam”. Many of the women who left the cult said they had been subjected to sexual abuse. One of them, Seda Isildar, told the Sunday Times earlier this year that she had been forced by Oktar to have a nose job without anesthetic. She said: "It was horrible. Horrible. I can still remember the hammer. I was counting how many times they were hitting the hammer and the chisel to my nose." [caption id="attachment_367527" align="alignnone" width="2048"]
Adnan Oktar was initially sentenced to 1,075 years behind bars (Getty)[/caption]
Isildar claimed she had still been in school when she was first introduced to Oktar and was later forced to marry him.
Another woman testified at his trial that he had sexually assaulted her and others, and forced them to take contraceptive pills.
Police found 69,000 contraceptive pills at his home, which he said were used to treat skin disorders and menstrual problems.
Ceylan Ozgul, who also managed to escape, explained how women would become indoctrinated.
She told the Sunday Times: "It didn't happen overnight. It happened over like a year. Even the stupid things started to suddenly make sense to you after a year, because you are thinking it's normal, everyone around you is doing it."
Ugur Sahin claimed he was a teenager when he first heard about Oktar, and became one of his 'lions' to recruit women by seducing them.
He said he would gradually strip them of their independence until they could be manipulated into sex slaves.
"It's like a race, like you always set a new target and she's trying to catch up with the targets and then at the end of the race you introduce her to Adnan Oktar. At that point Oktar knows what to do," he said.
Sahin estimated he brought about 200 women into the cult.
Oktar had pleaded not guilty and insisted the accusation he led a sex cult was an “urban legend”.
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