Turkish prosecutors sought up to 15 years in prison for Ekrem Yeter, the son-in-law of former Turkish parliament speaker Bülent Arınç, in a post-coup investigation targeting alleged links to the Gülen movement.
Yeter was jailed pending trial after Turkey’s July 15, 2016 coup attempt but released four days later.
The indictment, prepared by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, accused Yeter of acting as a senior figure within the movement and of maintaining his alleged affiliation after the December 2013 corruption investigations that implicated people close to then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government.
Prosecutors relied in part on witness statements.
The indictment also cited an increase of TL 41,000 in Yeter’s account at Bank Asya, a lender associated by Turkish authorities with the movement and later seized and shut down by the state.
A secret witness using the codename “Lagos” also claimed to have identified Yeter from a photograph, according to the indictment.
The Gülen movement is a transnational civic initiative inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
Ankara blames the movement for the coup attempt and designates it as a terrorist organization. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
The case drew attention because Arınç was one of the founders of Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and previously served as speaker of the Turkish parliament and deputy prime minister.
Yeter’s release after only four days in detention also stood out at a time when tens of thousands of people accused of alleged Gülen movement links were being jailed pending trial for months or years.
Bank Asya transactions and secret witness statements became common elements in post-coup prosecutions.
Rights advocates and defense lawyers criticized such evidence, arguing that ordinary banking activity, alleged affiliation and anonymous testimony were often used to support serious terrorism charges without individualized proof of criminal conduct.
The indictment against Yeter reflected the breadth of the post-coup legal campaign, which extended from soldiers, judges and civil servants to relatives of senior political figures.
