Turkish police detain 20 over alleged links to 2016 coup attempt

ANKARA, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) — The Turkish police detained 20 suspects across Türkiye over their alleged links to a network accused of orchestrating a coup attempt in 2016, the country’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said Wednesday.
The police carried out simultaneous raids across 11 provinces, Yerlikaya wrote on social media platform X, without specifying the time of the operations.
According to Yerlikaya, the suspects were allegedly operating within the “military elite structure” of the Gulen Movement, which the Turkish government accuses of attempting a coup on July 15, 2016.
They allegedly communicated via pay phones and had contact with responsible individuals within the Gulen Movement, and were users of the movement’s crypto communication program “ByLock,” Yerlikaya said.
He added that the suspects’ names were mentioned in testimonies of previously arrested group members.
The Turkish government has long accused the Gulen Movement of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt, which resulted in at least 250 deaths. Following the coup, Ankara launched a widespread crackdown targeting individuals suspected of having ties to the movement. ■