A court in the capital Ankara ordered the detention of Burak Akın to testify at a hearing when he failed to answer the summons. Media outlets speculated that Akın, who was a military officer whose confessions helped authorities to find a network of military infiltrators from the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), might be missing.
Akın, who was hailed as an anti-coup hero when he was shot while accompanying a top general during the 2016 coup by FETÖ's infiltrators in the army, stunned the public when he confessed he was actually a FETÖ member. He turned himself in in December and gave names of other FETÖ infiltrators who managed to disguise their ties after the coup bid that killed 249 people.
He was supposed to attend a hearing in a coup trial in Ankara where he was a plaintiff but did not show up. Officials said Akın was nowhere to be found after he was released when he invoked a remorse law for those confessing their ties to the terrorist group. The officer also did not respond to text messages informing him of the date, hour and location of the hearing. Judges ordered police to summon him to the next hearing on March 2. Though Akın is a plaintiff in the trial of pro-coup officers who took over the army headquarters during the July 15, 2016 coup bid, he faces charges of membership in a terrorist group in a separate criminal inquiry.
Akın was a protection officer for Gen. Yaşar Güler, then head of the Turkish army's Land Forces, when he was shot in the leg as he resisted the pro-coup group taking over army headquarters. In his confessions, Akın detailed how he was recruited by FETÖ before his military career started and how he kept in touch with the group's members until the coup attempt. Based upon the names he gave to authorities, security forces detained and arrested a number of other infiltrators in the army as well as non-military Gülenists who managed to hide their links to the group. Akın also paved the way for more military infiltrators from FETÖ to come forward and confess their ties to the terrorist group.
