A joint operation by the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and counterterrorism police netted Mustafa Karatay, a former judge, on the run after he was charged with membership in the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ), security sources said on Wednesday.
Karatay was captured in a safe house in the capital, Ankara, after spending eight years on the run.
Sources say Karatay was one of the key figures of the July 15, 2016 coup attempt by FETÖ and a senior "operative" of the group in the judiciary.
Acting on a tip-off, MIT ran surveillance on the house for a while before identifying the suspect. Security forces found Karatay hiding in the closet when they raided the house in the capital’s Yenimahalle district. A search of the house revealed a computer, tablet and smartphone Karatay used for communication with the upper echelons of FETÖ. Sources said Karatay used the Signal app to communicate with the group’s members. The app is known to be widely used among members, as earlier investigations have shown.
Karatay was expelled from his judiciary post after the coup attempt for his links to the terrorist group and was later charged with membership of a terrorist group.
FETÖ still has backers in army ranks and civil institutions, but they managed to disguise their loyalty, as operations and investigations have indicated since the 2016 coup attempt. FETÖ is also implicated in a string of cases related to its alleged plots to imprison its critics, money laundering, fraud and forgery.
The group faced increased scrutiny following the coup attempt by FETÖ’s infiltrators in the army 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 effort 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. FETÖ was already under the spotlight following two separate attempts to overthrow the government in 2013 through its infiltrators.
The terrorist group faces operations almost daily as investigators still try to unravel their massive network of infiltrators everywhere. In 2024 alone, police apprehended hundreds of FETÖ suspects across the country, including fugitives on western borders trying to flee to Europe.
Those apprehended were mostly low-ranking members of the group, as high-ranking members managed to flee the country before and immediately after the coup attempt.
On Wednesday, separate operations against FETÖ by police in Istanbul, Izmir and Rize led to the capture of 18 suspects.
The operation in Istanbul targeted safe houses of FETÖ known as "gaybubet" (absence) houses in the terrorist group’s jargon. Six suspects identified through their contacts with other FETÖ members were captured in raids at 14 locations. Security forces discovered large caches of gold in possession of suspects who were carrying fake IDs.
In İzmir and Rize, security forces apprehended 12 out of 14 suspects in an operation against FETÖ members while two others remain at large. Suspects were linked to terrorist groups by their use of Bylock, an encrypted messaging app developed and exclusively used by the group’s members. Some suspects were identified through testimonies of FETÖ members captured in earlier operations and found to have links to senior figures of the terrorist group. Some were employees of now-defunct companies linked to FETÖ.