One day before the anniversary of the 2016 coup attempt, the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) intercepted eight members of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) off the Aegean coast on Sunday.
Security sources said MIT carried out a joint operation with the Aegean Regional Command of the Turkish Coast Guard and Gendarmerie Commands in Izmir for the operation. The sources also said the FETÖ members seeking to flee abroad had been under surveillance before they boarded a U.S.-flagged sailboat named ASTERI and left from a gulf near the popular vacation resort town Alaçatı. Security forces stopped the boat, and 10 suspects, including eight members of FETÖ, were handed over to gendarmerie units for legal proceedings.
FETÖ members usually employ the same route of irregular migrants to flee abroad, either toward the northwestern border with Greece or through the Aegean Sea. In Edirne, the Turkish province that is the main crossing point to Europe by land, more than 4,000 FETÖ members have been intercepted on the border in the past eight years since the group sought to seize power on July 15, 2016, through its military infiltrators.
Sources said captured FETÖ members included former police officers and soldiers. Among them was Ö.B., who was expelled from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in 2020 on suspicion of FETÖ membership and faced an ongoing case against him. Another suspect, M.K., was expelled from the army in the same year, shortly after he was convicted of membership of a terrorist group. He was released pending trial in 2020.
A.K., a noncommissioned officer, was discharged from the army in 2017 and was a defendant in a FETÖ-related case. He was an officer in an artillery command in the past. A.Ç. also had an ongoing case against him though he was released pending trial in 2021. He was an officer at a key military department in charge of recruiting new personnel. H.S., another fugitive found aboard the boat, was a first lieutenant in a commando regiment before he was expelled in 2018. He was convicted of FETÖ membership that year.
Others aboard the boat were A.K., a police chief formerly stationed in the southeastern town of Cizre before his dismissal over FETÖ links in 2016, K.G., a doctor at an Istanbul hospital who was expelled from the public sector in 2022 for links to the terrorist group, and M.G., a suspect who was convicted of FETÖ membership but released pending trial in 2019.
