Police seek 70 military officers over Gülen links

Police launched an operation on Oct. 10 to detain 70 soldiers accused of links to the Gülen network, widely be-lieved to have orchestrated Turkey’s July 2016 coup attempt, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.

Operations targeting supporters of the network are continuing on a daily basis 15 months after the coup attempt. In the last week alone, around 800 people were detained over alleged ties to the network.

Among those targeted in the police raids, focused in the Central Anatolian province of Konya but launched simul-taneously across seven provinces, were two colonels, seven captains and 36 lieutenants.

Sixty-two of the suspects were in the air force, some of them pilots, the agency added.

So far, 30 of the suspects have been detained, while police continue searching the homes and workplaces of the remaining suspects.

Following their health checkups, the already detained suspects have been transferred to the police station for their initial testimonies.

The detention warrants were reportedly issued following the testimonies of previously arrested alleged Fe-thullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) members.

On the same day, the public prosecutor’s office in the northern province of Tokat issued detention warrants for 14 serving soldiers and five civilians. Police accordingly launched simultaneous raids across 14 provinces to detain the suspects.

Police also detained 24 officers and noncommissioned officers as well as two teachers in simultaneous operations across 16 provinces, as part of an investigation launched by the public prosecutor’s office in the southeastern prov-ince of Siirt. The suspects were taken to the Siirt provincial police station for their testimonies.