Fethullah Gulen is a former political ally of the Turkish president who is accused of swaying members of the military to carry out the coup attempt from his Poconos compound.
Advertisement
Around a third of Turkey’s roughly 360 serving generals have been detained since the coup attempt, a second senior official said, with 99 charged pending trial and 14 more being held.
Authorities have rounded up or sacked tens of thousands of police, judges, teachers and other civil servants from across the state bureaucracy in the aftermath of Friday’s failed bid to seize power by disgruntled elements in the military.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman denounced “revolting scenes of caprice and revenge against soldiers on the streets” after disturbing pictures emerged of the treatment of some detained suspects.
“Nobody can have a feeling of revenge”.
Seventy-five-year-old Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania but has a network of supporters within Turkey, has condemned the abortive coup and denied any role in it. “This is a move beyond fix, this is a divided country, a state of fear”.
He says he was alarmed by the arrests of judges and calls for reinstatement of the death penalty against coup participants.
For the authoritarian Mr Erdogan, it has been a huge “told you so” moment vindicating the increasingly conspiratorial tone of his speeches about the dark forces at work within the Turkish state.
Erdogan has accused Gulen of leading the coup from afar in the United States – charges which the Islamic preacher strongly denies. “Who planned it and directed it, I do not know”, state-run news agency Anadolu quoted him as saying.
Anadolu published images of a haggard-looking Ozturk, one ear heavily bandaged, and other suspects at the courthouse, their hands tied behind their backs.
Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus assured journalists that the government did not plan a civil rights crackdown.
The government says 312 people were killed in the coup, including 145 civilians, 60 police, three soldiers and 104 plotters. Yildirim said those involved with the failed coup “will receive every punishment they deserve”.
But it said the vast majority of its forces had nothing to do with Friday’s plot.
“At some point the Turks will want Europe to deliver on its promise for visa-free travel, but that’s going to become more and more hard to sell to European public opinion if Turkish domestic policy starts to look more and more Middle Eastern in their eyes”, Lesser said.
“In the aftermath of such a traumatic experience, it is particularly crucial to ensure that human rights are not squandered in the name of security and in the rush to punish those perceived to be responsible”, UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said Tuesday. Any extradition request would require “evidence, not allegations”, Kerry said Monday.
“The rule of law reigns supreme here”.
In their first telephone conversation since the attempted overthrow, President Barack Obama pledged U.S. assistance to Erdogan for the investigation into the putsch, which has threatened to once again raise tensions between the uneasy North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies.
“Had I stayed 10, 15 additional minutes, I would have been killed or I would have been taken”, he said in the interview broadcast late Monday.
But the European Union – which Turkey has for years tried to join in a stalled accession process – warned of the consequences of such a move.
“They were in a state of emergency and that is why they entered Greek territory”, Marinaki said before the ruling.
Advertisement
“We see mass arrest or detentions and mass firings of people from positions of employment in a very rapid period [of] time without a lot of evidence having been presented for those actions, that creates concerns”, he said. “I hope they will take a step as soon as possible”, he added.
