Since July 15, 2016, the day the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) employed its military infiltrators to seize power, a total of 24,706 personnel have been expelled from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), according to official figures.
National Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, who was kidnapped by putschists back then while he was serving as Chief of General Staff, announced the figures at a budget meeting at Parliament on Tuesday.
Akar said the ministry approved the dismissal of 10,022 personnel (after internal investigations), while others were dismissed from the TSK as a result of other investigations by law enforcement. "We continue our fight against FETÖ with resolve, based on new information," he said.
The terrorist group, which had infiltrators in law enforcement, the judiciary and the bureaucracy, still has backers in the army's ranks, though they managed to disguise their loyalty, as operations and investigations since the coup attempt have indicated.
According to an investigation by Istanbul's Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which was made public in December 2020, the terrorist group began infiltrating the TSK more than four decades ago. Based on a report prepared by Gendarmerie General Command, the report says 22 of 239 students who graduated from military schools between the 1970s and 1990s were charged with involvement in the 2016 coup attempt, while 58 others were investigated for being a member of FETÖ following the failed putsch bid. While the students discharged from military schools could not continue carrying out their missions in the army, they still aided FETÖ's attempts by offering insight into the military's workings, playing an "active role" in establishing the hidden network inside the TSK, the report says.
FETÖ – led by Fetullah Gülen, who currently lives in the United States and is implicated in a long list of trials against the terrorist group – orchestrated the coup attempt with the aid of its military infiltrators and civilian members of the group who were in charge of those infiltrators.
To this day, security forces continue their operations against the group. On Tuesday, 14 suspects were captured in an investigation based in the capital Ankara. They were former staff of two police schools and former police officers and are accused of affiliation with the terrorist group. One among them is accused of delivering questions and answers to a police school exam to applicants linked to the terrorist group in 2007. In another operation in the capital, prosecutors sought the arrest of 15 suspects, accused of fraud in the Public Personnel Selection Exam (KPSS) in 2013. Twelve suspects have been captured so far. The exam was used by the terrorist group to place its infiltrators in Turkish bureaucracy, including ministries.
Indictment against Gülen
Gülen, meanwhile, faces another trial in absentia. On Tuesday, a court in Ankara accepted an indictment against the FETÖ leader over the assassination of a prominent academic in 2002. Gülen and nine others are accused of masterminding the murder of associate professor Necip Hablemitoğlu, known for his expose on FETÖ, long before it was designated as a national security threat. Along with Gülen, senior FETÖ official Mustafa Özcan, Enver Altaylı, a former intelligence official, and retired Col. Levent Göktaş are also named in the indictment. Göktaş, Gülen and Özcan are among the defendants at large, while two other former soldiers accused of shooting Hablemitoğlu dead outside his home were captured earlier. Prosecutors are asking for prison terms ranging from four years to aggravated life imprisonment for the defendants for different crimes in the case, including running a criminal organization and homicide.