Yaşar Elibol, a former civil servant fired from his job and jailed over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, died of bone cancer on Friday in the northern province of Tokat, the TR724 news website reported.
Elibol, 60, had been dismissed from his job in Yozgat’s Sorgun district police department by a government decree after an abortive putsch on July 15, 2016, and was jailed shortly thereafter. He was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison on conviction of alleged links to the Gülen movement.
Elibol was diagnosed with cancer in prison and had been released by the Supreme Court of Appeals for reasons of health in 2018.
He is survived by a wife and two children.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members. He designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified the crackdown on it following the failed coup in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
According to the latest figures from the Justice Ministry, more than 126,000 people have been convicted for alleged links to the Gülen movement since 2016, with 11,085 still in prison. Legal proceedings are ongoing for over 24,000 individuals, while another 58,000 remain under investigation nearly a decade later.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
