In the first ruling in trials on a mass cheating scandal perpetrated by the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) in a civil servant exam, three suspects were sentenced to 14 years in prison yesterday by a court in capital Ankara.

The suspects, including the former staff in a state-run authority tasked with organizing the exam, were sentenced for being members of a terrorist group, forgery in official documents and fraud.

An investigation started a few years ago for mass cheating in the Public Personnel Selection Exam (KPSS) held in 2010. The probe started after allegations that the terrorist group supplied questions and answers to its members in order to gain access to the public sector and hence, to the higher ranks of bureaucracy.

İbrahim Kan, İbrahim Usta and Şule Ülker, the three suspects sentenced yesterday, were working in a unit of Turkey's National Exam Board(ÖSYM) tasked with preparing the exam questions. Prosecutors said Kan achieved "unusual" success in the 2010 exam despite his poor scores in other exams he took over the years. Ülker, similarly, answered all of the questions correctly in the 2010 edition of the exam despite getting very low scores in the 2008 and 2009 exams. Usta was linked to nine suspects in another investigation into the KPSS cheating and had a string of suspicious money transfers with the suspects.