Journalist argues Turkey’s 2016 coup attempt was a staged trap for soldiers

According to Gülümser, the aftermath of the coup attempt was used to imprison or purge hundreds of thousands of educated professionals, including surgeons, professors, teachers and journalists. He says the state of emergency that followed changed Turkey’s system of government and law, allowing the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to favor loyalists while crushing groups it viewed as opposition.

His central question is whether the coup attempt was allowed, shaped or staged because of the political outcomes it made possible.

Government declared guilt before evidence emerged, journalist says

Gülümser says that in a previous article on whether the coup attempt was a scenario, he argued that the government declared one group guilty from the first moments of the night, before evidence had emerged, and then became alarmed when contradictory evidence surfaced.

He says the authorities appeared to fear that flaws in what he calls a prepared scenario would be exposed, leading them to prevent any serious investigation into the coup attempt.

Within that framework, he points to the arrests of journalists who questioned the official account, including Ahmet Şık and Ece Sevim Öztürk, as well as former lawmakers Eren Erdem and Enis Berberoğlu.

Gülümser says the government monitors articles written abroad or by journalists investigating the coup attempt, removes information that contradicts its claims where possible and blocks access from Turkey when it cannot remove it.

He also says the government prevented key witnesses from appearing before the parliamentary coup investigation commission that it had established, fearing that contradictions would emerge. According to him, the commission was prevented from working properly and its members were pressured to sign a report prepared outside the commission.

Gülümser cites journalist Ahmet Nesin, who argued that Fethullah Gülen did not need a coup and that it was illogical to believe the movement would attempt one because such an act would damage its global activities.

By contrast, Nesin argued that after Erdoğan failed to secure a single-party government in the June 2015 elections, he feared losing power unless he neutralized groups he could not stop through democratic means. Gülümser says Nesin considered it more plausible that Erdoğan organized the coup attempt and pinned it on others to avoid potential corruption cases and consolidate power.

Gülümser also cites journalists Ece Sevim Öztürk and Adem Yavuz Arslan, saying their work identified abnormalities on the day of the coup attempt, including claims that the Marmaris team sent to capture Erdoğan was a scenario designed to fail.

In this article, Gülümser says he will examine events from the coup night and argue that traces of a staged scenario can be seen in almost every incident.

How the coup attempt was linked to the Gülen movement

Drawing on Adem Yavuz Arslan’s review of court files, Gülümser says the government’s effort to present the coup attempt as a Gülen movement operation relies heavily on two secret witnesses, code-named “Şapka” and “Kuzgun.”

Those witnesses claimed that two civilians and a small number of soldiers planned the coup at a villa. Gülümser says the only link used to connect that alleged meeting to the movement is the alleged presence of two civilians, Adil Öksüz and Kemal Batmaz.

“If you remove these two civilians, the incident’s entire connection to the movement is severed,” he writes.

Gülümser describes the alleged meeting as suspicious in both content and structure. He says one secret witness who claimed to have attended could not identify the participants and that the allegations depend on a single witness whose account may be true or fabricated.

He asks how an alleged coup meeting involving secular, pro-Atatürk military officers was transformed into a Gülen movement coup without a clear explanation.

According to the secret witness accounts, the alleged meeting included a decision to take Erdoğan from the Huber Mansion in İstanbul by helicopter on the day of the coup attempt and move him to a ship at sea. But Erdoğan was not at the Huber Mansion that day; he was at a hotel in Marmaris.

Gülümser says that contradiction undermines the claim that the meeting accurately reflected an operational coup plan.

Questions over Erdoğan’s location before the coup attempt

The official narrative, according to Gülümser, asks the public to believe that the alleged plotters planned to seize Erdoğan at the Huber Mansion but later had to change the plan because his holiday schedule shifted at the last minute.

Gülümser says this explanation contains multiple contradictions. He argues that Erdoğan’s location was not certain on the date when the coup meeting was allegedly held and that Erdoğan effectively disappeared after July 9, with few people knowing where he was.

“We are asked to accept the existence of a plan made for a missing person whose location was unknown,” he writes.

He rejects the claim that Erdoğan’s Marmaris holiday was decided by chance within half an hour on July 11. He says the chief of General Staff and force commanders had visited military units in Marmaris on July 5, Erdoğan was last seen in Antalya on July 9 and boats were removed from the area in front of the Gökova state guest house on July 10, suggesting preparations were being made.

Erdoğan then settled at a hotel in Marmaris on July 11 without informing the public, Gülümser writes.

He also says Erdoğan’s route to Marmaris suggests an effort to conceal his movements. Instead of flying to Dalaman Airport, about 40 kilometers from Marmaris, and transferring by presidential helicopter, Erdoğan flew to Çıldır Airport, roughly 150 kilometers away, and was taken to the hotel by the hotel’s helicopter.

“All of this shows the incident was staged from start to finish,” Gülümser argues.

He says the claim that a plan was made to take Erdoğan from the Huber Mansion before his schedule was clear is flawed in every respect.

Adil Öksüz and the unexplained release

Gülümser then turns to Adil Öksüz, whom Turkish prosecutors have portrayed as a key civilian figure in the coup attempt.

The official account says Öksüz flew to the United States on July 11, obtained approval for the coup plan and returned to Turkey on July 13. Gülümser questions how Öksüz could have obtained approval for a kidnapping plan during a period when Erdoğan’s whereabouts were unknown.

He also asks what role, if any, the Gülen movement could have played in adapting the alleged plan after Erdoğan’s location changed.

Gülümser says the state is attempting to place full responsibility on the movement through a story full of contradictions, centered on a man who was somehow moved beyond the reach of the law.

Öksüz was allegedly caught at Akıncı Air Base outside Ankara, which prosecutors portrayed as the command center of the coup attempt, on July 16. Prosecutors said he had coordinated the coup from there with military officers.

Gülümser notes that Kemalettin Özdemir said he had reported Öksüz to the National Intelligence Organization years earlier as the Air Force “imam,” a term Turkish authorities use for alleged civilian handlers within the movement. Gülümser says this shows there was already a file on Öksüz.

Yet, he says, no evidence was presented to prosecutors about the man the government later described as a chief coordinator of the coup. Instead, his status appears to have been hidden from prosecutors, preparing the ground for his escape.

The prosecutor still referred Öksüz to court on July 18 with a request for arrest. While many people with far weaker allegations were held for days and then jailed, Öksüz was released two days later because the court said there was no information against him, his address was known and there was no flight risk.

The prosecutor appealed, but the higher court upheld the release. Öksüz, who had reportedly been subject to a travel ban, later left the country during a period when ordinary people could barely fly from airports, according to Gülümser.

Gülümser says Öksüz’s role, the reasons for his release, the conduct of prosecutors and judges and his later escape all remain unclear. He also says there is no camera footage documenting Öksüz and Batmaz at Akıncı Air Base that day.

He notes that former Defense Minister Fikri Işık denied claims that he met Öksüz and later traveled to Marmaris to meet Erdoğan on July 14. Gülümser says the ruling party has avoided answering questions about how Öksüz was allowed to disappear.

“Based on this story full of illogicalities from start to finish, they expect us to believe that the coup was carried out by the Gülen movement,” he writes.

Why were alleged movement supporters not mobilized?

Gülümser argues that many facts suggest the Gülen movement did not organize the coup attempt.

He asks what kind of movement-led coup would leave more than 10,000 armed soldiers and police officers later dismissed for alleged movement links entirely uninformed, with none of them taking part in the coup attempt.

He also asks why more than 100,000 civil servants later dismissed for alleged movement membership were not involved in any coup activity, and why action against them was based on alleged affiliation rather than participation in the events of July 15.

“The movement, which has the capacity to reach wide segments of society, did not involve anyone in these matters,” he writes. “While hundreds of thousands of movement followers watched the events unaware, they supposedly attempted a coup with five or six soldiers.”

Gülümser says the limited number of soldiers accused of movement links and involvement in the coup attempt told courts they were unaware of what was happening and were acting on orders from commanders. Some said openly that commanders had set a trap to make them appear involved.

He says events in the Naval Forces are among the clearest examples.

Naval commanders accused of trapping their own officers

Gülümser relies on Ece Sevim Öztürk’s review of court records to describe what she called “the darkest day of the Naval Forces.”

According to that account, Naval Forces Commander Adm. Bülent Bostanoğlu and Fleet Commander Adm. Veysel Kösele held an unscheduled 90-minute meeting at the naval high school on Heybeliada, an island off İstanbul, at noon on July 15. In their statements to prosecutors, Gülümser says, they did not explain the meeting and kept its content secret.

Bostanoğlu later said he left his bodyguard behind at 7:30 p.m. to escape the putschists and began planning against them. But in his formal statement, he said he learned of the coup attempt at 10:23 p.m., left a wedding and began wandering the streets of İstanbul.

Gülümser asks why, if Bostanoğlu knew about the coup earlier, he went to a wedding instead of taking precautions. He says no prosecutor asked that question.

Kösele, meanwhile, learned that 29 warships under his command, about 70 percent of the fleet, had set sail from the Aegean and Mediterranean after a warning about a possible terrorist attack. Gülümser says he did not intervene and also went to a wedding.

Instead of stopping an action that could later be interpreted as support for the coup attempt, Kösele allegedly allowed thousands of personnel to be placed under suspicion. He later said he hid in a wooded area inside a military officers’ club after learning of the coup attempt.

Gülümser says both commanders behaved similarly after their mysterious Heybeliada meeting: through indirect instructions, they ensured that ships set sail, then turned off their phones at the same time and hid.

Rather than issuing a return order through the chain of command, he says, they phoned selected commanders and saved them while refusing to answer calls from others. They allegedly told those they contacted to keep the information from other personnel, preventing the order from reaching the people they wanted to appear guilty.

According to Gülümser, Kösele indirectly had an order issued for ships to return, while another announcement warned that ships approaching port would be fired upon. Personnel who had set sail because of a reported terrorist threat were then dragged from one place to another by contradictory orders from different units.

At one point, Kösele reached one of the warships by boat. In an atmosphere of uncertainty over who was involved in the coup attempt, soldiers became concerned by his arrival, and at the request of Cmdr. Ayhan Bay, he was locked in a cabin.

Gülümser says Kösele gave the appearance of being held by putschists through Bay, whom he says had been used to spread the order for ships to deploy.

He argues that Bostanoğlu and Kösele created chaos until late at night, made their personnel appear guilty and then allowed purges to proceed based on pre-prepared profiling lists. Some commanders who set sail were declared heroes, while others were accused. Even people who served on the same ship were treated differently, with some tried for life sentences and others cleared.

According to Gülümser, the Naval Forces case shows that a plan decided at the Heybeliada meeting was implemented. He says commanders trapped their own personnel and then, using profiling lists prepared by a team that included Rear Adm. Cihat Yaycı, accused many officers of coup crimes and had them arrested.

He says prosecutors ignored the illegal orders of commanders, the refusal to answer calls from some officers and the selective treatment of personnel engaged in the same actions.

Gülümser argues that patriotic officers such as Özgür Öztürk, who brought ships back to port without bloodshed despite limited information, were later held responsible and put on trial, while figures such as Ayhan Tekin, who commanded nine ships and allegedly increased the chaos through contradictory orders, were treated as successful.

In his view, the Naval Forces defendants were not putschists but soldiers deceived with claims of a terrorist threat and trapped by their commanders.

Air Force commanders accused of encouraging and abandoning subordinates

Gülümser then turns to the Air Force, relying on Adem Yavuz Arslan’s review of court records.

He argues that Air Force commanders also created uncertainty through ambivalent behavior, giving subordinates the impression that “we are with you too” before later abandoning them.

Air Force Commander Gen. Abidin Ünal said in a statement given as a complainant two days after the coup attempt that he learned of the coup at 9:30 p.m. from his wife. In an additional statement 13 days later, however, he said he had been informed at 7:06 p.m. after the flight ban notice.

Gülümser says Ünal should have taken all necessary measures, including the use of force if needed, to ensure units under his command obeyed the flight ban ordered by the chief of General Staff. Instead, he says, Ünal failed to perform his duty and allowed events to escalate.

Despite the closure of Turkish airspace, Ünal did not go to headquarters to intervene. Instead, he took 22 generals to a wedding hosted by Gen. Mehmet Şanver, Gülümser writes.

He says Ünal did not brief Şanver, the Air Force’s second-ranking commander, and did not meet with then-Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar to discuss why the airspace had been closed. When he should have informed the prime minister, Gülümser says, Ünal called twice and hung up.

Şanver later learned that unusual events were taking place in Eskişehir and asked Lt. Gen. Cemal Kadıoğlu to go there, but Ünal allegedly blocked him, saying there was no need.

The wedding was later raided, and 23 generals, including Ünal, were said to have been taken hostage and brought to Akıncı Air Base. But Gülümser says camera footage does not show panic among the commanders. Instead, the soldiers allegedly taking them hostage are seen standing at attention and saluting.

Ünal was also seen linking arms and joking with Akın Öztürk, the former Air Force commander later portrayed by prosecutors as the leading figure in the coup attempt.

Gülümser asks what kind of hostage-taking allows a commander to smile at pilots accused of bombing Ankara and say, “Good evening, take it easy,” in a way that appears to encourage them.

According to a report prepared by officers serving at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Ünal deliberately greeted pilots warmly and cheerfully when he arrived at the F-16 squadron building, creating the impression that he supported them. Gülümser says Ünal could have stopped the events with an order but instead turned a blind eye and left his subordinates exposed.

Ünal’s hands were not handcuffed, his phone was not taken and he was allowed to speak with whomever he wanted, the report says. Gülümser argues that after encouraging and pushing forward officers and pilots under his command, Ünal abandoned them and later testified against them as a complainant.

At Akıncı Air Base, which prosecutors described as the coordination center of the coup attempt, no one prevented Ünal from speaking with pilots in Eskişehir, who were later credited with helping stop the coup. Gülümser says he was able to coordinate events freely by phone while later accusing soldiers who carried out instructions from their superiors.

Gülümser says Ünal gave the impression of siding with the putschists at almost every stage of what he calls the coup scenario.

Cadets sent to the bridge as ‘sacrifices,’ journalist argues

Gülümser also points to Ünal’s visit to the training camp at Yalova Air Base Command on the day of the coup attempt, even though it was not on his schedule.

There, Ünal allegedly told personnel, “Do not tire the kids, they will be very tired tonight.”

Gülümser says Ünal approved the transfer of young air force cadets, who did not know what was happening, to the Bosporus Bridge in İstanbul, where they were thrown in front of angry crowds.

He argues that the cadets were used as “sacrifices” in the bridge occupation part of the scenario. Some cadets were killed, while survivors later received life sentences.

Ünal also called Akın Öztürk in Ankara and asked him to go to Akıncı Air Base to warn personnel there to comply with the flight ban. Gülümser says Öztürk’s later presence at Akıncı in uniform, his appearance in the same room as Akar and allegations involving his son-in-law made him easy to cast as the alleged No. 1 figure in the coup attempt.

He says both Ünal and Akar remained silent about their own roles in drawing Öztürk into the events and did not defend him.

According to Gülümser, Ünal hid critical information from commanders, waited for the situation to escalate, encouraged soldiers who were later accused of involvement and pulled others into the events.

Officers who helped stop the coup were arrested, article says

Gülümser cites journalist Ahmet Dönmez, who wrote that some officers accused of movement links were arrested despite taking active roles in preventing the coup attempt.

Those included Tayyip Sina Doğan, the helicopter technician who helped take Erdoğan from the hotel to the airport; Barış Yurtsever, the pilot of the plane that flew Erdoğan from Dalaman to İstanbul; and five pilots who tried to stop the coup by bombing Akıncı Air Base.

Gülümser says commanders did not defend officers under their command, even when those officers had helped oppose the coup attempt.

Former Air Force intelligence chief Brig. Gen. Aydemir Taşçı said in court that if force commanders had been called to duty and ordered personnel back to barracks, the events would certainly have been prevented.

Gülümser says none of the force commanders were called, and none went to their posts after learning of the events. They later avoided responsibility by claiming they had been detained or taken hostage.

He argues that this explanation does not match the facts. There was no operational plan to seize the naval commander other than his own statement that he hid from putschists. There was no plan to take away the Air Force commander, and had he not gone to the wedding, Gülümser says, no one would have been looking for him.

The security director of the Land Forces commander said he had been in the Gülen movement since he was 13, but he did not neutralize his commander and was instead wounded while protecting him, according to the article.

For Gülümser, the claim by force commanders that they were detained or taken hostage does not withstand scrutiny.

The article ends by saying the analysis will continue.