Turkish chief public prosecutor bound for Syria caught on border

Erzurum Chief Public Prosecutor Ekrem Beyaztaş was caught after he disobeyed warnings by soldiers to stop on the border of the Afrin border post in the Duruca village.

The Kilis Governor’s Office said in a statement that judicial and administrative proceedings against the prosecutor had begun.

Turkey’s Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) suspended Beyaztaş from duty after the failed coup attempt of July 15.

Meanwhile, two staff colonels who fled after the coup attempt and were reportedly planning to flee to Egypt were caught in the Central Anatolian province of Konya on Aug. 14.

The Konya Organized Crime Department determined that Staff Colonels Nebi Gazneli and Müslüm Kaya were hiding in a house in the Selçuklu district after their arrival in the area on Aug. 6.

The soldiers were detained in a special forces operation at around 10:30 p.m. while the brother of Gazneli, Ömer Gazneli, who allegedly helped them hide, was also detained in a simultaneous operation at his house.

Gazneli reportedly said in his testimony that he conducted discussions to ensure his brother and Kaya could flee to Egypt on Aug. 16.

He also confessed that the duo buried their service pistols and bullets in the garden of the house.

The two staff colonels reportedly ordered soldiers to raid the Turkish Radio and Television Association (TRT) and open fire on people on Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge on the night of the failed coup attempt.

The two colonels are expected to be transferred to Istanbul for interrogation.

Meanwhile, a lieutenant and two sergeants on duty on İmralı Island, where the leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, has been kept in jail since 1999, were detained by anti-terror police over their suspected links to the U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen as a part of the FETÖ probe in the northwestern province of Bursa.

The detained security officials, H.Ü., H.U. and M.S., who were in the gendarmerie unit responsible for security outside the high-security jail, were previously suspended over their suspected links to the Gülenists. 

They were later detained in their houses in Bursa pending an appearance in court.