İbrahim E., who used to run a printing house affiliated with the Gülen movement in Azerbaijan, has been extradited to Turkey as part of an ongoing government-led crackdown on the movement’s alleged or real followers, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Wednesday.
İbrahim E. was reportedly brought to İstanbul accompanied by two Azerbaijani police officials on a charter flight and was subsequently referred to the Ankara Police Department for interrogation.
Mehmet Gelen, a Turkish teacher who was abducted in Baku last month, turned out to have been forcibly returned to Turkey and put pre-trial detention in Ankara. The abduction took place in front of a courthouse in Baku after an Azeri judge turned down Turkey’s request for Gelen’s deportation.
In a similar development, Zübeyir G., another Gülen-linked figure who was heading a company in Nigeria, was earlier this week detained by police at an airport in Turkey on an arrest warrant charging him with membership in an armed terrorist organization.
Zübeyir G. was brought to Ankara and jailed.
Following the coup attempt, the Turkish government launched a massive crackdown on followers of the movement under the pretext of an anti-coup fight as a result of which more than 150,000 people were removed from state jobs while in excess of 50,000 others were jailed and some 600,000 people have been investigated on allegations of terrorism.
A report published by the Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) revealed the absurd pretexts used by prosecutors to indict suspects and judges to jail innocent people who are alleged to have been affiliated with the Gülen movement. The report finds that the fundamental principles of law, such as “no crime without a law,” have widely and systematically been violated. (SCF with turkishminute.com)
