Turkish authorities have arrested 158 military personnel suspected of having links to the late cleric Fethullah Gulen, who was accused of orchestrating the 2016 failed coup attempt. The Istanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed the arrests on Tuesday, adding that a search is still underway for 18 more suspects.
Most of the arrests targeted individuals within the Turkish army. Gulen, once an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, fell out with the Turkish leadership and went into self-imposed exile in the United States in 1999. He passed away in 2024.
The Turkish government has long alleged that Gulen’s Hizmet (Service) movement aimed to build a “parallel state” by infiltrating key institutions, including the military and judiciary.
In late May, authorities had already apprehended around 50 other military members in a similar crackdown.
Since the 2016 coup attempt, Turkey has arrested nearly 26,000 individuals for alleged ties to the Hizmet network, with more than 9,000 of them facing imprisonment, according to figures released by Turkish judicial authorities.
