Three people who were detained on Sunday at Turkey’s Ipsala border gate on the grounds that their passports were among thousands of others which the government revoked after last year’s controversial coup attempt, were put in pre-trial detention by a Turkish court on Tuesday, the Cumhuriyet daily reported.
According to the daily, the Turkish government earlier cancelled the suspects’ passports for over alleged links to the Gülen movement. When the suspects — C.İ., F.F.B., Y.Y.Y., Ö.T., E.T., K.K.– tried to exit to Greece, their passports did not go through and they were detained by the border police.
According to the report, three of the detainees — C.İ., E.T. and K.K. — were arrested and sent to prison by a Turkish court on Tuesday while the rest were released pending trial.
Meanwhile, Hakan Özhan, a cardiology professor of Düzce University was detained by police on Tuesday over his alleged links to the Gülen movement. Professor Hakan Özhan was transferred to local courthouse and he was arrested by the court and sent to a prison.
Maçka gendarme commander Zabit Zengin was also arrested by a local court in Trabzon province one his alleged links to the Gülen movement. Zengin was detained by the police teams on August 23.
Also in Kayseri province a local court has given 6 years and 3 months prison sentences for 11 out of 12 arrested suspects who was jailed over their alleged links to Gülen movement on Tuesday. One of the suspect was released by the same court on the basis of lack of sufficient evidences to show his alleged links to the Gülen movement.
Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15 that killed 249 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
Turkey has suspended or dismissed more than 150,000 judges, teachers, police and civil servants since July 15. Turkey’s Justice Ministry announced on July 13 that 50,510 people have been arrested and 169,013 have been the subject of legal proceedings on coup charges since the failed coup. (SCF with turkeypurge.com)
