Around 4,000 Gülenist Terror Organization (FETÖ) members have fled to Germany, a coup plotter confessed in his testimony.

Lieutenant Ahmet Akalın, a commander of the Gendarmerie Commandership in the Eskihisar neighborhood of İzmit province, said he was briefed on the coup attempt a few hours in advance and that they were planning to seize control of the country at 4 a.m. on Friday.

Indicating that a FETÖ member told him a senior soldier will come and give him classified instructions, he said that the member also ordered them to obey the directions of the soldier.

"On July 15, Abdülkadir Öz, Captain Commander of the District Gendarmerie Commandership [at Gebze district of İzmit] called me on my private phone at around 4:20 p.m. and invited me to meet him. I was in the lodgments and went to him. Right after me, First Lieutenant Arda Uzun and Mehmet Özen also entered. We sat and started to talk," he said.

Stating in his testimony that Öz told them that he would be the soldier to make the call, he said that FETÖ was preparing a coup before they were dismissed from the military. "He told us that ‘4,000 brothers of us escaped to Germany. We will make this [coup] before they get to us. If God allows, we will seize control by 4 a.m.,'" he said, adding that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was to be detained by Special Forces units and that they would be in the team to raid Turkcell, Turkey's largest mobile phone operator.

"We were to go there under the command of the martial law commander and the job was to be completed within three or four hours," he said in the testimony.

"I was shocked with this discussion. I could not believe what I heard. We left there in order to meet by 3:30 a.m.," he said.