Former Turkey national team goalkeeper Ömer Çatkıç was detained in İstanbul as part of a post-coup investigation based on alleged use of ByLock, an encrypted messaging app Turkish authorities treated as evidence of links to the Gülen movement.
Çatkıç, 43, was detained at his home on the instructions of İstanbul public prosecutor Ergün Güçlü and taken to the İstanbul Police Department.
Police also searched his residence.
The investigation was conducted by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.
According to the report, authorities claimed Çatkıç was identified as a ByLock user following an examination based on the statement of a cooperating defendant.
ByLock became one of the most widely used grounds for detention and prosecution after Turkey’s July 15, 2016 coup attempt.
Turkish courts and prosecutors frequently treated alleged ByLock use as evidence of membership in the Gülen movement, while defendants and rights advocates challenged the reliability of the data, the methods used to identify alleged users and the practice of treating app use alone as criminal evidence.
The Gülen movement is a transnational civic initiative inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
Ankara blames the coup attempt on the movement and designates it as a terrorist organization. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Çatkıç was a former national goalkeeper who played for several Turkish clubs and most recently for Antalyaspor between 2008 and 2012.
His detention showed how ByLock-based investigations extended beyond military officers, civil servants and educators to public figures in sports and other sectors.
Critics said the use of alleged ByLock records, especially when combined with statements from cooperating defendants, allowed prosecutors to widen post-coup investigations across society without individualized evidence of involvement in the coup attempt.
