Detention warrants issued for 249 suspects for unfair recruitment, tampering on Foreign Ministry exam

ANKARA

At least 106 people were detained on May 20 as part of five different investigations conducted over allegations of tampering with the Foreign Ministry’s personnel recruitment exam, conducted by FETÖ to unfairly recruit and promote its members, Anadolu Agency reported on May 20.

Prosecutors in the capital Ankara issued detention warrants for 249 suspects prior to operations in 42 provinces, according to a statement by the Ankara public prosecutor.

The suspects had entered the Foreign Ministry in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, prosecutors said in the statement. It added that the detentions were made as part of investigations into irregularities made during these exams in favor of FETÖ members.

A total of 557 personnel were dismissed from the Foreign Ministry, where a total of 6,251 personnel were employed, on accusations of affiliation with FETÖ, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu stated earlier, adding that this figure constitutes 25 percent of the ministry staff.

FETÖ and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gülen are accused of orchestrating the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, which left 251 people killed and nearly 2,200 injured.

Among the suspects detained were Mehmet Baransu’s brother, Ahmet Baransu, and Mehmet Beyazıt Dişli, the son of retired Major General Mehmet Dişli, a member of the Turkish General Staff accused of being one of the prominent figures of the failed coup, Anadolu Agency reported.

In the operation, 14 active public servants among 19 suspects subjected to detention warrants were detained. Nine of them are staffers of the Foreign Ministry and the others are employees of other institutions, according to the agency.

It was determined that some of the suspects had answered the essay sections in the exam in 2010 with the same exact sentences, according to Anadolu Agency.

The text of this essay, which the suspects wrote using the same expressions, had been used as a speech text by a Turkish ambassador in 2012 at a conference abroad. The ambassador was expelled from the Foreign Ministry on the grounds that he was a FETÖ member, the agency reported.

In the translation questions of the written examination, it was determined that the majority of the candidates displayed advanced knowledge of a foreign language in some of the sentences in the same paragraph while primary school knowledge of the same foreign language in another part.

Before the operation carried out by the Anti-Financial Crimes Department, some suspects confessed to how they took the exam questions by taking advantage of the effective remorse law and how they worked with FETÖ members.