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Istanbul – Turkish authorities were yesterday rounding up dozens of generals as well as senior judges and prosecutors accused of supporting a failed military coup aimed at ousting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The government has already said that almost 3,000 soldiers had been detained on suspicion of involvement in the putsch which began on Friday night, but faltered already in the early hours of Saturday.
NTV television said that 34 generals of various grades had been detained so far. They include senior figures like Erdal Ozturk, commander of the third army and commander of the Malatya-based second army Adem Huduti.
The authorities have been carrying out raids at military bases across Turkey in search of those suspected of supporting the coup, which has claimed at least 265 lives.
In an operation early yesterday, at the garrison in the western town of Denizli, its commander Ozhan Ozbakir was detained along with 51 other soldiers, the state-run Anatolia news agency said.
The crackdown is however not restricted to the military and Anadolu said that prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for a total of 2,745 judges and prosecutors across Turkey.
It was not clear how many had been detained so far but the private Dogan news agency said 44 judges and prosectors were detained overnight in the central city of Konya and 92 in the southeastern city of Gaziantep.
The entire investigation is being led by Ankara prosecutors and those arrested are suspected of belonging to the group led by the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen who Turkey accuses of masterminding the coup. Gulen denies the charges.
Turkey accuses Gulen of leading a group called the “Fethullahci Terror Organisation (FETO)” that has created a parallel state. Gulen’s supporters say their group which they call Hizmet (Service) is entirely peaceful.
US President Barack Obama had warned Turkey there is a “vital need” for all parties to “act within the rule of law” in the aftermath of the coup.
Meanwhile, French police yesterday arrested a man and a woman with ties to the man behind a truck ramming attack claimed by the Islamic State group, a judicial source said.
Five other people are already in custody, including the estranged wife of Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian with no apparent links to extremism and who is said to have been radicalised very quickly.
The Islamic State group announced earlier that the Tunisian man who barrelled through a holiday crowd with a truck in the southern French city was one of its “soldiers” – the first claim of responsibility for the attack.
France’s interior minister boosted security measures across the country late on Saturday, calling upon thousands of reservists to help after facing severe criticism for alleged police and security failures in the deadly attack.
Meanwhile, an exiled Muslim cleric whom Turkey’s president has accused of orchestrating a failed coup denied any responsibility on Saturday, saying he had no knowledge of the plot.
Fethullah Gulen told reporters at his Pennsylvania compound he knows only a “minute fraction” of his legions of sympathisers in Turkey, so he cannot speak to their “potential involvement” in the attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“You can think about many motivations of people who staged this coup. They could be sympathisers of the opposition party. They could be sympathisers of the nationalist party. It could be anything,” Gulen, who has lived in the US for more than 15 years, said through an interpreter.
The reclusive cleric, who very rarely speaks to reporters, talked about the failed overthrow attempt shortly after Erdogan demanded that the United States extradite him. US Secretary of State John Kerry said the Obama administration would entertain an extradition request but Turkey would have to prove wrongdoing by Gulen.
Looking frail, Gulen, who is in his mid-70s, sat on a sofa in a large reception room outside his living quarters, with an aide taking his blood pressure before the news conference.
He said he wouldn’t have returned to Turkey even if the coup had succeeded, fearing he would be “persecuted and harassed.”
“This is a tranquil and clean place and I enjoy and I live my freedom here. Longing for my homeland burns in my heart, but freedom is also equally important,” said Gulen, who lives on the grounds of the Golden Generation Worship & Retreat Centre, an Islamic retreat founded by Turkish-Americans.
In the United States, a lawyer hired by the Turkish government has lodged numerous accusations against a network of about 150 publicly funded charter schools started by followers of Gulen, whose philosophy blends a mystical form of Islam with staunch advocacy of democracy, education, science and interfaith dialogue.
Nobody associated with the US schools has been charged with wrongdoing. – AFP
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