Nuri Gökhan Bozkır, who is suspected of murdering Necip Hablemitoğlu, an academic known for exposing the Gülenist Terror Group's (FETÖ) crimes, has been brought to Turkey from Ukraine through an intelligence operation, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a televised broadcast late Wednesday.
Turkey had earlier reiterated its extradition request for Bozkır, who was caught in Ukraine.
Bozkır’s extradition is tied to an investigation carried out by the Ankara Public Prosecutor's Office into the murder of Hablemitoğlu.
Bozkır was detained by Ukrainian authorities on July 10, 2019, in Kyiv and was in prison for three months, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported. He was then sentenced to house arrest for a maximum of six months with a travel ban prohibiting trips outside of Kyiv.
Turkey’s extradition request was ultimately rejected by a Ukrainian court on Dec. 8, 2020, but the prosecutor’s office ruled for his extradition eight days later. Bozkır’s lawyers then appealed the decision and the appeal hearing scheduled for Aug. 2 was postponed over Bozkır’s health problems. The court then summoned him on Aug. 18 but he never showed up for the remaining nine hearings, the report said. The latest hearing scheduled for Dec. 14, 2021, was postponed to Jan. 11, 2022.
Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) then mobilized to bring Bozkır back and successfully handed him over to the police for interrogation.
During his time in Ukraine, Bozkır had been spreading pro-FETÖ propaganda against Turkey and Turkish officials, MIT said, adding that he has now been handed to security forces as part of legal procedures.
Hablemitoğlu's wife, Şengül Hablemitoğlu, noted that she was not informed about the operation and learned about Bozkır’s detention from the live broadcast.
Meanwhile, the family's lawyer, Ersan Barkın, said Bozkır had sought political asylum after the Interpol Red Notice in 2019. Ukraine had rejected extraditing him and had also rejected his asylum request, but Bozkır had disappeared until the MIT operation, the lawyer said.
Barkın continued by saying that they do not know about the details of Bozkır’s involvement in the assassination.
"Under the scope of the information we obtained from the case, there is a high suspicion that this individual had information about the day of the assassination and the preceding day," he said, noting that this was the reason behind the Red Notice.
Atatürk University's Necip Hablemitoğlu, known for his research and books on FETÖ, which he branded as a criminal organization, was killed in 2002 and the case was left unsolved.
In 2015, prosecutors in the capital Ankara launched an investigation into FETÖ's involvement in unsolved murders committed between 2000 and 2013, including the head of Ankara police's special operations department Behçet Oktay (2009), judge candidate Didem Yaylalı (2013) and a member of Turkey’s Council of State in 2006.
FETÖ and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gülen orchestrated the defeated coup on July 15, 2016, which killed 251 people and injured nearly 2,200.
Ankara also accuses FETÖ of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.