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 lawyer 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, 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 Turkey and the European Union.