60 Gülen network suspects detained across Turkey

ANKARA

At least 60 suspects linked to the network of U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen were detained during simultaneous raids across eight Turkish provinces on May 2, according to security officials.

In the capital Ankara, police said they arrested four suspected members of what the authorities call the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ), widely believed to have orchestrated the July 2016 coup attempt.

The detentions came after prosecutors in Ankara and the western province of İzmir issued arrest warrants for 10 FETÖ suspects.

Nine former employees of the Undersecretariat of the Treasury are among those sought with arrest warrants, according to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Some of the suspects are accused of using the network’s encrypted messaging app, ByLock.

In an operation based in the northwestern province of Bursa, counter-terrorism department police arrested 27 former police personnel as part of an investigation launched by the provincial prosecution.

In the Central Anatolian province of Aksaray, organized crime units arrested two fugitive FETÖ suspects in an operation that targeted “absence houses,” a label given to hideouts of secret FETÖ members.

Separately, police detained a dismissed police officer and a suspended gendarmerie member in the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir.

Another 25 suspects were arrested during simultaneous operations across 15 provinces, based in the southeastern province of Batman.