The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office has authorized the issuance of a detention warrant for 19 individuals as part of an ongoing investigation into the clandestine activities of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).
In a statement released on Monday, the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office revealed that a comprehensive examination of evidence, including witness testimonies, statements from anonymous informants, a series of consecutive and periodic phone calls, as well as references and ratings attributed to the organization, has led to the identification of the alleged membership and affiliation of the 19 suspects with the said organization.
The decision to detain these individuals, who are believed to be integral components of the clandestine public sector structure of the organization, extends across nine provinces centered around the capital city of Ankara.
The Ankara Security Directorate Anti-Smuggling Crimes Branch is actively pursuing the arrest of these suspects, with an ongoing effort to apprehend and subsequently transfer them to the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office for further legal proceedings.
Since December 2013, when the terrorist group emerged as the perpetrator of two coup attempts disguised as graft probes, FETÖ has been regarded as a security threat. Prosecutors say that the group's infiltrators in law enforcement, the judiciary, bureaucracy and the military had waged a long-running campaign to topple the government.
The group is also implicated in a string of cases related to its alleged plots to imprison its critics, money laundering, fraud and forgery.
FETÖ has been under more intense scrutiny since the July 15, 2016 coup attempt its infiltrators in the army carried out, which left 251 people dead and thousands more injured. Tens of thousands of people were detained, arrested or dismissed from public sector jobs following the attempt under a state of emergency.
