President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday filed a complaint against former staff adviser for Iraq and Iran at the Pentagon Michael Rubin over provocative tweets insulting and threatening Erdoğan and his family.
Lodged to the Ankara Chief Prosecutor's office by Erdoğan's lawyer Hüseyin Aydın, the nine-page complaint letter accused Rubin -- an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) analyst -- of insulting the president.
Rubin regularly sends provocative tweets threatening the president, as well as his family.
The complaint, seen by Anadolu Agency, noted: "Rubin's illogical accusations and insulting tweets are not only a reflection of his hatred and anger towards President Erdoğan but also against the Turkish Republic."
Rubin is accused of supporting and committing offenses for Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), which is blamed by Turkish government for perpetrating the July 15 defeated coup that left 250 people dead and around 2,200 injured.
Rubin had previously been criticized for defending Fetullah Gülen, the leader of FETÖ. For instance, he wrote a piece entitled "Deporting Gülen Would Undercut NATO," and used a pro-FETÖ hashtag #hizmet in a tweet in which he denied any association with the group.
In his columns and tweets, Rubin accused the Turkish President of using the coup attempt "to purge society of political and ideological opponents."
"Support for Erdoğan is in no way support for Islam and Turkish dignity. Backing Erdoğan will be a support for corruption and collapse of Turkey," he wrote in a tweet in Turkish language.
In another column on the AEI website, he said, "Erdoğan has nobody to blame for the coup but himself," claiming the president's foreign policy of "no problems with neighbors" has caused problems with "almost every neighbor."
In a story titled 'Extradite Gülen? Really?', Rubin wrote: "What's going on isn't about Gülen. It's a power play [of Erdoğan]."
U.S.-based FETÖ leader Fetullah Gülen is accused of a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through infiltrating the Turkish state, particularly the military, police, and judiciary, forming the so-called parallel state.
Gülen has been living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999.
