Turkish police detain 2 ex-judges sought on Gülen charges while trying to flee to Greece

EDİRNE - Doğan News Agency

Police detained two former judges on Oct. 21 sought over alleged links to the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) while trying to flee to Greece from the northwestern province of Edirne.

Bülent Kınay and Fatih Mehmet Uslu were captured together with two Pakistani-origin immigration smugglers in Edirne’s Üyüklütatar village on the Greek border. The former judges were then referred to court.

Asked by a reporter whether they had been “attempting to flee to Turkey” while they went into a gendarmerie vehicle, Kınay and Uslu said, laughing, “We came to Edirne to wander around and eat liver [for which the province is famous for].”

After their judicial processes were completed in the Edirne courthouse, Kınay and Uslu’s detention periods were extended and dispatched to the Edirne anti-terror police branch.

The other two suspects who were of Pakistani-origin, on the other hand, were released by the court in order to be referred to the Edirne immigration authority for deportation.

Kınay was amongst the judges that had handled the Fenerbahçe match-fixing scandal blamed on FETÖ. The former judge was indicated to have been sought by Istanbul’s Bakırköy Second High Criminal Court, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri and the 16th Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals.

Uslu, on the other hand, was indicated to have taken part in the Ergenekon case, considered one of the most significant legal battles in recent Turkish history, which had lasted nearly a decade. Almost all judges and prosecutors who took part in the case have faced accusations of acting under the commands of the Gülen network.

Uslu was indicated to have been sought by Istanbul’s Bakırköy Second High Criminal Court, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Aegean province of Kütahya’s Tavşanlı district and the 16th Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals.