Retired military prosecutor Ahmet Zeki Üçok said five pilots who carried out an airstrike on a military air base near Ankara that prosecutors described as the command center of Turkey’s July 15, 2016 coup attempt were later jailed over alleged links to the Gülen movement, raising questions about how the government is defining guilt in the post-coup purge.
Üçok made the claim during a CNN Türk broadcast on the anniversary of the coup attempt.
He said he had asked then-Air Force Commander Gen. Abidin Ünal why the air force had waited until around 4:30 a.m. to strike the base near Ankara.
Üçok said Ünal told him commanders could not find pilots they trusted at that moment.
According to Üçok, Ünal said only five pilots could be found, which is why the intervention came late.
Üçok then added that the same five pilots who bombed the alleged coup command site were later jailed on accusations of membership in the Gülen movement.
The claim is striking because the pilots’ action, as described by Üçok, was directed against the military facility that prosecutors say was being used by coup plotters.
If the pilots were trusted enough to be sent to strike the base during the attempted takeover, their later jailing over alleged Gülen movement links adds another contradiction to the government’s sweeping post-coup prosecutions.
The Gülen movement is a transnational civic initiative inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
Ankara designates the movement as a terrorist organization and blames it for the coup attempt. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
The air base near Ankara has been central to the government’s coup-attempt cases because prosecutors say senior commanders were taken there and that aircraft movements tied to the attempted takeover were directed from the base.
Üçok’s remarks point to a broader problem in the military purge: the same state institutions that present certain personnel as acting against the coup attempt can later accuse them of belonging to the group blamed for it.
Since the coup attempt, thousands of military personnel have been dismissed, detained or jailed over alleged movement links.
Critics say many of those targeted were not accused of taking part in the attempted takeover and that some were at home or away from duty when the events unfolded.
Üçok’s claim, if accurate, suggests that even participation in an operation against the alleged coup command site did not protect pilots from later prosecution under the government’s broad affiliation-based investigations.
