Turkey Detains 116 Police and Army Officers over Alleged Gulen Links

Arrested soldiers who participated in the 2016 attempted coup d'etat in Turkey, are accompany by Turkish soldiers as they arrive at the court inside of the Sincan Prison before trial in Ankara, Turkey, 01 August 2017. Photo: EPA/TUMAY BERKIN

Prosecutors in the city of Izmir ordered the arrest of 138, 116 of whom were taken into custody early on Tuesday morning in 39 cities across Turkey. Police and gendarmes were still trying to track down 22 others.

Of the 82 military suspects, 70 are still in active service.

"As part of an ongoing investigation, an operation was started to detain police and military officers whose contacts were detected with FETO leaders," the Izmir Persecutors Office said in a statement. FETO, or Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation, is the name given by authorities to the movement founded by US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.

According to Turkey's Demiroren News Agency, 60 of the suspects serve in the General Command of the Gendarmerie, 16 in the Turkish Land Forces, five in the Turkish air force and one in the navy.

In a separate investigation, 12 former police officers were detained in the capital, Ankara, also for alleged links to the Gulenist movement.

The Izmir Persecutors Office requested that the Turkish military suspend 848 soldiers, including a number of colonels, lieutenant colonels and majors because of their alleged links to the movement.

The Turkish government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the US since 1999, and his network of operating a parallel structure within the Turkish state and orchestrating a coup attempt in July 2016.

Gulen has dismissed the accusations.

According to the Turkish interior ministry, since the...