Former Turkish police chief claims Gülen Movement pulls strings in police, judiciary

ANKARA

The Gülen movement’s team is dominating almost every intelligence unit,” Hanefi Avcı said. DHA Photo

Former Eskişehir Chief of Police Hanefi Avcı claimed amid a graft probe targeting the government that religious scholar Fethullah Gülen’s followers pulled every string inside the intelligence services, the police and the judiciary.

The author of the book that dug deep into Gülen’s movement, which resulted in a 15 year prison sentence, claimed its followers gathered all the information they collected on public servants in a common pool during an interview with daily Yeni Şafak, published Jan. 13.

“Then, they decide whom they will sue or whom they will arrest. They first leak the incident from their partisan media. Then the police do the prosecutor’s work. The scene investigation report is transcribed in the summary of proceedings, which then becomes an indictment,” Avcı told daily Yeni Şafak’s veteran journalist Ali Bayramoğlu.

Government officials accuse Gülen’s followers of being behind the graft probe investigation that has implicated four ex-ministers and business circles close to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as a massive purge has been orchestrated within the police department. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan even pointed to “a parallel state” in plotting the probe.

Admitting being a former follower of Gülen, Avcı said his movement will be the party most damaged by this process. “I am not even glad for being right. This was something evident and known,” Avcı said.

“In the past, I and my milieu saw the education service given by the movement as more valuable and important than anything. The same happened with intelligence and phone tapping [the people]. But with time, I understood how this could be abused and create problems and injustice,” he said, accusing the movement of “fabricating witnesses and evidence,” as well as tapping thousands of people without any authorization.

“The government did not see that early enough and made a big mistake. The movement’s team is dominating almost every intelligence unit,” he said.

Avcı was imprisoned and fined on charges of helping members of the illegal Revolutionary Headquarters probe through his book, “Haliç’te Yaşayan Simonlar: Dün Devlet Bugün Cemaat” (Devoted Residents of Haliç: Yesterday, State, Today, Religious Community).

He was also condemned for helping the organization carrying unlicensed automatic and semi-automatic guns and influencing judicial officials carrying out the investigation and judicial process on terror organizations.