Turkish prosecutors on March 5, 2019 ordered the detention of 30 Air Force personnel over alleged links to the Gülen movement, with police taking 22 of them into custody in morning raids.
Nineteen of the 30 suspects were serving on active duty.
The group comprised one captain, one lieutenant and 28 noncommissioned officers, according to a statement from the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Prosecutors said the suspects’ alleged links to the movement had been identified through statements and identifications provided by people detained in previous operations who cooperated with authorities in return for possible sentence reductions.
Police were searching for the remaining eight suspects.
The operation was part of a crackdown launched after a failed coup on July 15, 2016, which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government blames on the movement inspired by the Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen.
Gülen and representatives of the movement denied involvement in the coup attempt.
A 2017 report by the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee said there were indications that individual followers of Gülen may have participated but found a lack of evidence proving that the movement as an organization or its senior leadership directed the attempt.
The committee also said the UK government lacked evidence to designate the movement as a terrorist organization.
