A Turkish businessman accused of spying for the US, the UK and Israel told a court Monday that he helped Ankara identify the names, addresses, networks and assets of figures linked to the faith-based Gülen movement in Europe and the US after a 2016 coup attempt, adding a new layer to an espionage case targeting jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.
According to Turkish Minute, Hüseyin Gün made the claim at the first hearing of a “political espionage” trial in the Silivri district of İstanbul, where he is being tried along with İmamoğlu, campaign adviser Necati Özkan and journalist Merdan Yanardağ.
Prosecutors are seeking prison sentences of 15 to 20 years for each defendant.
The case centers on allegations that Gün, an internationally connected businessman and technology investor, helped foreign intelligence-linked figures use İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality data and campaign analytics to influence the 2019 İstanbul mayoral election in İmamoğlu’s favor.
İmamoğlu, a leading opposition figure and the main political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, denies the charges.
Gün also denied the espionage accusations, saying the work at the center of the indictment was a social media analysis based on publicly available data after Turkey’s election authority annulled the March 2019 İstanbul vote and ordered a rerun.
“I never obtained any information that had to remain secret for the security of the Republic of Turkey for the purpose of espionage,” Gün told the court, according to Turkish media reports.
He said he had not tried to obtain such information and had not shared it with anyone.
The most striking part of his defense concerned the period after the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, which Erdoğan’s government blames on the faith-based Gülen movement.
Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish Islamic scholar who lived in self-imposed exile in the US until his death in October 2024, as well as the movement he inspired denied any role in the coup attempt.
Ankara labels the movement a terrorist organization, but the designation is not accepted by other governments or major international bodies, including the US and the European Union.
Gün told the court that after the coup attempt he worked abroad on behalf of the Turkish state against people accused by Ankara of links to the Gülen movement.
He said he helped identify the names, addresses, networks and assets of leading Gülen-linked figures in Europe and the US and supported efforts to secure their return to Turkey.
Gün also said he prepared reports titled “Black Cell,” along with organizational charts and information on the movement’s foreign links, using contacts abroad.
He said the materials were sent to Turkish state authorities.
Gün claimed that writings included in the indictment showed he was described as a project manager in Turkey’s overseas campaign against the Gülen movement.
He also said he initially described the work as commercial activity because he did not want to disclose what he called a state secret.
The claim amounts to a defense that Gün’s foreign contacts, which prosecutors describe as suspicious, were tied at least in part to state-backed work for Ankara rather than espionage against Turkey.
It also puts the case in the context of a broader record of Turkish state activity abroad targeting people accused of links to the Gülen movement.
Rights groups, as well as some European governments, have for years accused Turkish state bodies, diplomats, intelligence channels and religious officials of monitoring, pressuring or helping identify Erdoğan critics and Gülen-linked individuals in Europe after the coup attempt.
German police in 2017 raided the homes of Turkish imams suspected of spying for Ankara on alleged Gülen followers.
German officials also said Turkish intelligence had given German authorities a list of hundreds of people, associations, schools and institutions accused by Ankara of links to the movement.
Germany did not treat those people as terrorists and instead warned some of them that they could face reprisal if they traveled to Turkey.
In the Netherlands Turkey recalled Yusuf Acar, a religious affairs attaché at the Turkish Embassy in The Hague, after Dutch authorities accused him of compiling a list of Dutch Turks suspected of sympathizing with the Gülen movement.
Dutch ministers described the information gathering as unacceptable interference in the lives of Dutch citizens.
Austria and Switzerland also investigated claims of Turkish intelligence activity or embassy-linked monitoring of government critics and people accused of Gülen links.
A 2016 report in Hürriyet Daily News said Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) had collected information through imams in 38 countries on alleged Gülen followers.
The listed countries included Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and the United Kingdom.
Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the group.
Erdoğan’s government labeled the group as a “terrorist organization” in May 2016, before the failed coup took place.
Erdoğan intensified the crackdown on the movement following the coup attempt on July 15, 2016, that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.
The movement’s followers, also known as Hizmet (Service) supporters, say they have been unfairly targeted in a campaign of political persecution aimed at silencing dissent and consolidating power. The post-coup purge has seen hundreds of thousands investigated and tens of thousands imprisoned on terrorism-related charges widely viewed as politically motivated.
The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly said in 2023 that Turkey had pursued people allegedly linked to the Gülen movement abroad through methods including surveillance, extradition requests, INTERPOL notices, passport cancellations, intimidation and unlawful transfers.
Rights groups describe that pattern as transnational repression, a term used for a state’s attempt to silence, monitor or abduct critics living outside its borders.
Gün’s courtroom statement links his own defense to that same pattern.
The indictment presents Gün as the central figure in the İmamoğlu espionage case because of his foreign contacts, alleged use of encrypted communication and reported links to people associated by prosecutors with US, British and Israeli intelligence circles.
The investigation reportedly began after a tip to Turkey’s 112 emergency call center accusing Gün of spying for Israel, the UK and the US.
Authorities later seized phones, devices believed to be encrypted and handwritten notes.
Gün was arrested in July 2025, and the case later expanded to include İmamoğlu, Özkan and Yanardağ.
The case is one of several criminal proceedings targeting İmamoğlu, who was jailed as part of a growing crackdown on the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
