Mustafa Tarımcı, a former police officer dismissed by an emergency decree over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement after a 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, died on Wednesday in Adana province.
According to the TR724 news website, Tarımcı had been hospitalized since January 9 after suffering a heart attack. He was arrested after his dismissal on charges of membership in a terrorist organization and later acquitted, but he was never reinstated despite the court’s decision. He reportedly experienced prolonged health problems during this period of time.
Tarımcı is survived by a wife and two children.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted 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. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and later designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after the failed coup in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency that remained in effect until July 19, 2018. During this period, the government carried out a purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight by issuing a number of government decrees. Over 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as more than 24,000 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.
