A Turkish prosecutor is seeking up to 15 years in prison for a former judge on grounds of his involvement in the Gülenist Terror Group's (FETÖ) so-called "private" branch, local media reported Monday.
H.Ç. was expelled from his post in the Hatay province by the Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK) in May 2022 after an investigation was launched into his activities linked to the terrorist group behind the defeated July 2016 coup attempt.
A court in the southern Adana province accepted the indictment, which argued the defendant, currently not detained, began his connection with FETÖ after getting into law school in 2005.
Until his graduation, he stayed at a FETÖ-affiliated house where he watched videos of the group's ringleader, Fetullah Gülen, and attended the group's so-called "conversations." He was tasked with drawing in new recruits, as well as training students in FETÖ's ideology, the indictment said.
During his stay at FETÖ's "judge-prosecutor study homes" in the capital, Ankara, H.Ç. periodically communicated with FETÖ's "secret imams" and military students.
Since December 2013, when the terrorist group emerged as the perpetrator of two coup attempts disguised as graft probes, FETÖ has been regarded as a security threat. Prosecutors say that the group's infiltrators in law enforcement, the judiciary, bureaucracy and the military had waged a long-running campaign to topple the government. The group is also implicated in a string of cases related to its alleged plots to imprison its critics, money laundering, fraud and forgery.
FETÖ has been under more intense scrutiny since the July 15, 2016, coup attempt its infiltrators in the army carried out, which left 251 people dead and thousands more injured. Under a state of emergency following the attempt, tens of thousands of people were detained, arrested, or dismissed from public sector jobs.
The terrorist group faces operations almost daily as investigators still try to uncover their massive network of infiltrators everywhere – from military and police to judiciary and bureaucracy. Earlier this month, Turkish police detained over 60 FETÖ suspects or fugitives in nationwide operations.
The Ministry of National Defense announced in 2022 that 24,387 Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) members were sacked since the coup attempt for possible ties to the group, while administrative inquiries are underway for over 700 others.
Meanwhile, an unknown number of FETÖ members, mostly high-ranking figures, fled Türkiye when the coup attempt was thwarted.
Many of the group's members had already left the country before the coup attempt after Turkish prosecutors launched investigations into other crimes of the terrorist group.