The Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) ran a secret network of members in charge of courting parties and planting their members in Türkiye’s political landscape, according to a report by Turkish newspaper Sabah's Abdurrahman Şimşek citing investigations by Turkish intelligence.
The group, which attempted to topple the government under the guise of an anti-graft probe in 2013 and again in 2016 through its military infiltrators, established the said network in 2013, the year it faced more scrutiny from authorities.
The network had a total of 69 "secret imams," a name referring to handlers of FETÖ infiltrators in terrorist group’s jargon.
The network was led by Murat Karabulut, who was also in charge of FETÖ’s infiltrators in the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), Sabah's report alleged. Karabulut, who fled Türkiye after the group’s first coup attempt failed in 2013, was succeeded in helming the political network by Ahmet Hamdi Parlak, one of the masterminds of a FETÖ plot for the arrest of the MIT chief Hakan Fidan years ago.
The terrorist group divided Türkiye into six "regions" and appointed a "secret imam" into the skills of its members, for each. Tappi who included political scientists, FETÖ set out a road map to reinforce its political network.
The group’s leader, Fetullah Gülen, personally shaped FETÖ’s political doctrine. Gülen ordered his followers to infiltrate state agencies and political entities regardless of their ideology, even the smallest branches of those parties in towns.
The political network also advised Gülen to mobilize his followers to vote for the pro-PKK Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the 2015 elections. It was also in touch with HDP lawmaker Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu and Sezgin Tanrıkulu, a lawmaker for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). The HDP is known for its intricate links to the PKK terrorist group and was often courted by the CHP for election alliances in the past and for upcoming municipal elections in the country. Aykan Erdemir, a former CHP lawmaker, was also in touch with the network.
It also sought to establish its own party and employed Interior Minister Idris Naim Şahin to that extent. Şahin, who was ordered to resign from the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), established the Nation and Justice Party (MİLAD) in 2014.
The party, though, had a short life and ceased to exist in 2017, while Şahin himself resigned from its chair only five months after its establishment.
İdris Bal, another AK Party lawmaker, was ordered to resign and establish his own party, though he shared the same fate with his namesake and quit his own party within months when he failed to garner support.
The terrorist group also instructed former police chiefs to be jailed after FETÖ’s 2013 coup attempt to file a candidacy in the 2015 legislative elections. Prominent police chiefs linked to the terrorist group, including Ali Fuat Yılmazer, Yakup Saygılı and Yurt Atayün, sought nomination but failed.
The terrorist group, which had infiltrators in law enforcement, the judiciary and the bureaucracy, still has backers in army ranks and civil institutions. However, they managed to disguise their loyalty, as operations and investigations have indicated since the 2016 coup attempt.
The group faced more investigations following the coup attempt that killed 251 people and injured nearly 2,200 others. Tens of thousands of people were detained, arrested or dismissed from public sector jobs following the attempt under a state of emergency.
Hundreds of investigations launched after the attempt sped up the collapse of the group’s far-reaching network in the country. Over the past few decades, the terrorist group is believed to have expanded its infiltration into the public sector, from law enforcement to ministries.
The group is also implicated in a string of cases related to its alleged plots to imprison its critics, money laundering, fraud and forgery.
The terrorist group faces operations almost daily as investigators still try to uncover their massive network of infiltrators everywhere. Last month, Turkish police detained over 65 FETÖ suspects or fugitives in nationwide operations.