Turkish prosecutors are seeking prison sentences of up to 50 years for 22 former judges and prosecutors dismissed over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, citing detention orders issued in a case involving a far-left militant group.
The Bakırköy 7th High Criminal Court in İstanbul accepted the indictment, which charges the former judicial officials with unlawfully depriving people of their liberty by abusing their positions, the pro-government Daily Sabah news website reported.
The charges stem from decisions made between 2009 and 2012 during an investigation and trial involving Revolutionary Headquarters (Devrimci Karargâh), a far-left militant group. Prosecutors also accused the defendants of rejecting requests for release.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted the faith-based Gülen movement, inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who died in 2024, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated Erdoğan as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after a coup attempt in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
The prosecution followed compensation claims filed by five people acquitted in the Revolutionary Headquarters case. Authorities investigated the former judges and prosecutors after the Treasury paid compensation for their detention, treating the payments as a financial loss to the state.
The reports did not specify what evidence prosecutors cited to establish intentional wrongdoing by individual defendants or include responses from the defendants. or their lawyers.
Turkey’s Council of Judges and Prosecutors authorized the prosecution of the former judicial officials on October 8, 2024.
In a separate case in July 2025, Turkey’s Constitutional Court, sitting as the Supreme Criminal Tribunal, sentenced three former judges to one year, 10 months and 15 days each for repeatedly abusing their authority in connection with the Sledgehammer coup plot case. Prosecutors alleged that the judges had acted under the direction of the Gülen movement. A fourth judge was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Former police chief Hanefi Avcı was among the defendants in the Revolutionary Headquarters case. He was detained in September 2010 and was sentenced in 2013 to more than 15 years in prison on charges including assisting the group. He was released in June 2014 after the Constitutional Court found that the courts had failed to provide sufficient grounds for his continued detention. In May 2017, he was acquitted of charges of assisting a terrorist organization and violating firearms laws, while proceedings on two other charges were deferred.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has found human rights violations in numerous cases involving judges and prosecutors targeted during Turkey’s crackdown on the Gülen movement. In March 2025 the court ruled that the pretrial detention of 51 judges and prosecutors following the 2016 coup attempt was unlawful.
In separate judgments in February 2025, the ECtHR found that Turkey had violated the right to a fair trial of 120 judges and prosecutors who had been dismissed or forcibly reassigned without adequate legal safeguards.
On June 23, 2026, the ECtHR communicated to the Turkish government applications filed by 11 former judges and prosecutors, along with 12 civil servants, over their dismissal for alleged links to the Gülen movement. The court sought the government’s observations on whether the dismissals complied with judicial independence guarantees, procedural safeguards and the right to a fair hearing.
Following the coup attempt of July 15, 2016, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency that remained in effect until July 19, 2018. During this period, 4,006 judges and prosecutors were removed by the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), later renamed the Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK), for alleged links to “terrorist organizations.”
(Turkish Minute with reporting by Stockholm Center for Freedom)
