A resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former staff adviser for Iraq and Iran at the Pentagon Michael Rubin threatened President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a tweet, implying that he will be the first person to be hanged if he brings the death penalty back.

Many outraged by Rubin's provocative tweet slammed his message, which was written in Turkish.

"Such a strange irony: to reinstate the death penalty and be the first one to be hanged" Rubin said.

Rubin regularly sends provocative tweets threatening the president, as well as his family and promotes the "No" campaign for the upcoming constitutional reform referendum.

He is a staunch supporter of Egyptian coup leader Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, who replaced the country's first democratically elected president through a military takeover.

Rubin had previously been criticized for defending Fetullah Gülen, the leader of Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ). For instance, he wrote a piece entitled "Deporting Gülen Would Undercut NATO," and used a pro-FETÖ hashtag #hizmet in a tweet in which he denied any association with the group.

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