By Sertac Bulur and Orhan Onur Gemici
ANKARA (AA) – Five more suspects in a secret smartphone app case linked to the July 15 coup plot were arrested in Turkey on Thursday.
Turkish police said 121 people had been detained so far over use of the encrypted messaging service, ByLock.
The suspects were detained by Ankara’s Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime Department teams in an operation which began Wednesday morning and also took place in 13 provinces. The operation is targeting a total of 215 police personnel, including 147 high-ranking officers.
ByLock is said to have been used by members of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), which the government has said was behind the attempted takeover which martyred 241 people and wounded 2,200 others.
The app is believed to have been cracked by Turkish security agencies before the coup, prompting the plotters to switch to the WhatsApp messaging service but not before tens of thousands of FETO suspects had been identified.
Turkey accuses FETO, which is led by U.S.-based Fetullah Gulen, of organizing the defeated coup as well as a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.