He told US broadcaster CNN he narrowly escaped death after coup plotters stormed the resort town of Marmaris where he was vacationing.
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“In his case, it would be to roust out the opposition forces, elements to his regime so he can arrest them, put them in prison, try them, or maybe just kill them”, Lendman said.
Addressing hundreds of supporters outside his Istanbul residence early yesterday, he responded to calls for the death penalty with a simple statement: “You can not put aside the people’s demands”.
The state-run Anadolu news agency said a total of 8,777 employees attached to the ministry were dismissed, including 30 governors, 52 civil service inspectors and 16 legal advisers. Ozturk, who was still on active duty and has now been detained, has denied he was involved and insists he worked to quell the uprising in statements to Turkish media. On Saturday, he called on the United States to extradite Gulen, who has himself strenuously denied involvement. He lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania but has a network of supporters in Turkey. No reason was given for the detention. The government is likely to press the button to undergo substantial changes on a number of laws to avoid future coup attempts.
On Monday, Kerry said that American officials would consider any extradition request, but said Turkey must formally lodge one based on “genuine evidence that withstands the standard of scrutiny that exists in many countries”.
“No democracy shall allow for soldiers, prosecutors, police, judges, and bureaucrats to take orders from an outside organization instead of the institutional bureaucracy”, said Erdogan.
Faruk Logoglu, a former Turkish ambassador to the USA and an opposition party a member of parliament from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), said that the coup “will reinforce Erdogan’s powers and allow him to limit the freedoms that remain”. Another 257 working in the prime minister’s office were fired, as were 492 in the religious affairs directorate. It came as the military was reeling from the failed putsch and appeared to be an attempt to show that the forces are on top of security matters.
Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004 as part of a series of human rights reforms undertaken for its membership bid for the European Union. “We’ve taken all those steps that we need to take to make sure that everything that we control in Turkey is safe and secure”, Peter Cook, a Department of Defense spokesman, told journalists. In the wake of the coup attempt Hizmet has been designated a terrorist organisation by the Turkish government.
The Flemish Belgian politician, who is a former Belgian prime minister, also said: “It is a good thing that Turkey escaped a new military dictatorship, but only if democracy is being maintained”.
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Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Brussels Monday the USA would agree to an extradition request for Gulen only if there was compelling proof of wrongdoing.
