Former education head expected to testify today
İZMİR - Anatolia News Agency
Gürüz, arrived in İzmir on a boat with his wife and was surprised when he was not taken into detention right away. He is expected to testify in Ankara today. DHA photo
A former head of the Higher Education Board (YÖK), Kemal Gürüz, who was given a detention notice in the first operation targeting civilians in the ongoing probe into the Feb. 28 process, returned to Turkey yesterday. He said he did not do anything beyond legal limits.Gürüz, who arrived in İzmir on a boat with his wife, was surprised when he was not taken into detention right away. He is expected to testify in Ankara today.
“I have worked with pride and did not do anything that is beyond justice. I do not remember any directives that came to us from military wings,” he said.
Gürüz then left for Ankara in his private vehicle.
A prosecutor had demanded the arrests of four former officials on the Higher Education Board (YÖK), including Gürüz on Friday.
Police raided the homes of Gürüz and three former YÖK officials, Kenan Deniz, Sedat Arıtürk and Erdoğan Özmal, on the morning of June 22 in the sixth wave of the probe and could not locate Gürüz, who was abroad on a trip.
Gürüz was known for his hard-line opposition to female students wearing headscarves at universities during his term.
The process took its name from the Feb. 28, 1997 meeting of the National Security Council (MGK), at which Turkey’s then-omnipotent military imposed a series of tough secularist demands on Erbakan that were mainly aimed at curbing Islamic education in the face of what was perceived to be a growing threat to Turkey’s secular system
Some 58 active and retired military officers have been arrested in the investigation so far.
