A Turkish former reality television contestant serving his sentence in Cyprus has appeared in a leaked interview recorded from inside the central prisons, appealing to international leaders for help.

Footage of Taner Tolga Tarlaci, a former contestant on the Turkish edition of Survivor, was published across two instalments on Cenk Hoca’s YouTube channel.

Tarlaci was convicted in 2023 by the Famagusta permanent criminal court on three counts of rape, deprivation of liberty with intent to subject a person to sexual abuse and threatening violence.

The offences were committed in April 2022 in Paralimni against a 35-year-old woman, who told the court that Tarlaci had invited her to his apartment claiming he wanted to “sell her products”.

The court sentenced him to ten years in prison.

In the interview, which was recorded using a fellow inmate’s phone, Tarlaci claims to have suffered “severe racism and mistreatment from prison guards and other inmates“.

He maintains he was denied a fair trial, alleging that photographs and other evidence supporting his defence were rejected by the court on the same grounds.

Tarlaci then remarkedly claimed that he had sought the intervention of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, US President Donald Trump, and claims to have contacted Elon Musk in a supposed effort to secure his release or a transfer to Turkey.

The video was uploaded in two parts some two weeks ago but went unnoticed by prison authorities until it was flagged internally after being circulated among inmates.

The footage was filmed in Wing 10 of the Central Prisons, a maximum-security section fitted with closed circuit cameras throughout and holding no more than ten detainees at any time.

The justice ministry confirmed to the Cyprus Mail that it is aware of the case in question and will be issuing a public statement forthwith.

Tarlaci’s claims have circulated widely on social media, with some users describing the allegations as unfounded and suggesting they may reflect his own psychological deterioration while imprisoned.