In the most recent turn of events in Turkey’s ongoing crackdown on the faith-based Gülen movement, authorities have apprehended a former judge and a former prosecutor who were being sought due to their alleged ties to the movement, the private DHA and IHA news agencies reported.
The Gülen movement, inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, is accused by the Turkish government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of masterminding a failed coup on July 15, 2016 and is labeled a “terrorist organization,” although the movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Former judge Mustafa Karatay, who had been in hiding in the Yenimahalle district of Ankara, was located thanks to a tip from a former neighbor after evading arrest for eight years.
He was captured in a joint operation conducted by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the Ankara Police on Wednesday. The officers seized various digital devices during the operation, including a laptop and a mobile phone, which were allegedly used by Karatay to maintain contact with the movement’s other members via encrypted messaging applications.
Karatay, once a prominent judge, played a critical role in the trial of former generals and military officers following a series of investigations launched in 2008 into an alleged network, known as Ergenekon, of ultranationalist coup plotters in the military. Although then-prime minister Erdoğan supported the investigations, he blamed the alleged Gülen followers within the police and the judiciary as having orchestrated them after a 2013 corruption probe that implicated several high-ranking government officials, including Erdoğan.
Karatay was dismissed from his post after the 2016 coup attempt and became the subject of an arrest warrant on charges of “membership in an armed terrorist organization.”
In a separate case, former Bursa chief public prosecutor Namık Yılmaz, who was dismissed following the 2016 coup attempt and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison in 2019 for his involvement with the movement, was on Tuesday arrested in the İnegöl district and put in prison.
His arrest sparked criticism on social media after images showed him being handcuffed behind his back.
“Public Prosecutor N.Y. (57) was arrested and handcuffed from behind. He … will also be awarded damages by the ECtHR [European Court of Human Rights] in the future. And the harm you have done to Turkey will never be forgotten,” journalist Sevinç Özarslan said on X, addressing Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.
According to data revealed by Turkish Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç in July, a total of 705,172 people have been investigated on terrorism or coup-related charges as part of the AKP government’s ongoing crackdown on followers of the Gülen movement. Tunç said 13,251 people in prison are in pretrial detention or convicted of terrorism in Gülen-linked trials.
Tens of thousands of people who were arrested in the post-coup crackdown and convicted of terrorism have been released from prison over the years after serving their sentences.
With regard to judges and prosecutors who have been dismissed from their jobs due to their alleged affiliation with the Gülen movement, the minister said 4,006 prosecutors and judges have been fired from their jobs due to their alleged Gülen links since the coup attempt.
Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants as well as 24,706 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.
The investigations and prosecutions still continue unabated despite multiple rulings from the ECtHR in favor of the Gülen followers who were put in pretrial detention or convicted on terrorism charges following the coup attempt.