Turkish Police Arrest At Least 77 People For Alleged Links To Gulen Movement- Reports

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th July, 2020) Turkey's police have arrested at least 77 people suspected of having links to the movement of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, referred to as the Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) by Ankara, media reported on Tuesday.

According to the Turkish Anadolu news agency, Ankara prosecutors demanded that 20 people suspected of communicating with the Gulen movement be arrested. After the warrants were issued, police carried out simultaneous raids in five provinces and arrested 19 suspects. As of now, the operation is continuing to capture the remaining suspect.

Meanwhile, police in Turkey's Izmir province, located along the Aegean coast, carried out raids in houses occupied by the movement's followers as part of investigations by prosecutors of various provinces, which has resulted in the arrests of 25 suspects and the seizure of money, mobile phones and jewelry, the news agency added.

Another 33 people suspected of having links to the Gulen movement were arrested in the province of Samsun on the Black Sea coast.

Anadolu also reported that police were still searching for five more suspects.

Ankara has long been accusing Gulen, and all organizations associated with him, of attempts to orchestrate the 2016 coup in Turkey that left 251 people killed, and nearly 2,200 injured. Following the short-lived rebellion in July of that year, thousands were arrested � among them were state and military personnel, civil activists, journalists and teachers � and tens of thousands more have been dismissed or suspended over their alleged links to FETO.