Detained college owner identified as senior Gülenist Imam

Hakan Çiçek, owner of the Anafartalar College and one of the civilians caught at Akıncı Air Base that was used as a headquarters by the coup plotters during the July 15 failed coup attempt, has been identified as the master of staff officers, Turkish daily Habertürk reported Sunday. As part of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) investigation carried out by the Ankara Public Prosecutor Office, another "imam" (a master in the FETÖ structure) was unveiled in the testimony of a detained officer.

According to lieutenant colonel İlkay Ateş's testimony in court, he began pilot training after finishing army aviation school, and then he met with army officers named Sadullah A. and Taner K. through FETÖ members, whom he lived in the same house with until Taner K. was married.

"Then I met with pilot major Gökhan Çiçek, who was assigned to Ankara at that time. I didn't know his brother's name, but I knew he was the staff officers' Imam. I guess he fled abroad," Ateş said.

The Ankara Public Prosecutors Office started the investigation after his testimony and identified Gökhan Çiçek's brother as Hakan Çiçek, who was caught at Akıncı Air Base after the failed coup attempt. His file has been carried out with Adil Öksüz, FETÖ's air force Imam and one of the managing figures of the failed coup attempt, another civilian caught at Akıncı Air Base.

Öksüz was detained after the foiled coup attempt at Akıncı Air Base, and was among three civilians found in and around the base after the coup attempt was quelled, but in a controversial verdict, was released by Gülenist judges only hours after his detention. He remains at large and is believed to have fled abroad while the prosecutors and judges who ordered his release are now under investigation.

Öksüz was not the only suspected Gülenist found at the air base. Hakan Çiçek was also detained near the base while trying to flee after the base was recaptured. Çiçek has claimed that he was invited to the base for "an event," but media has reported that together with Öksüz, he was an associate Imam responsible for relaying Gülen's orders to putschist troops. "I was invited by Colonel Ahmet Özçetin, parent of one of our students, to Akıncı Air Base that night. Then military activity started around the base. I couldn't manage to escape from there. Then, in the morning, I saw people were fleeing, and I also vaulted the wall and started to walk through a village. Then I was caught by gendarmerie. I am not a FETÖ member," Hakan Çiçek said. However, he couldn't answer the question about the name of his student whose parent is Ahmet Özçetin.

A third civilian, Nurettin Oruç, was also detained near the base hours after the coup attempt. Oruç, a filmmaker, claimed he was visiting a village near the base in preparation to shoot a documentary, according to leaked excerpts of his testimony published in the Hürriyet daily. Like Oruç, Öksüz claimed in his initial testimony that he was visiting a village near the base to purchase a plot of land when he was captured before being brought to the base by troops before the coup attempt broke out.

It was revealed before that FETÖ established lot of schools in order to give education to children of the prominent military officers and bureaucrats. The private Anafartalar College in Ankara and Sirus College in Istanbul were among the schools that purported to give education accordingly to the "Kemalist" ideology. These schools were closed following the government's decision after the failed coup attempt.