UPDATE - FETO ordered search of Turkish intel trucks: Prosecutor

UPDATES WITH PROSECUTOR'S NEW INDICTMENT

By Murat Paksoy and Murat Kaya

ISTANBUL (AA) – The leader of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), the group blamed for last year’s defeated coup in Turkey, ordered the leaking of state secrets in 2014, according to Istanbul’s chief public prosecutor.

Referring to an incident in January 2014 when trucks bound for Syria were stopped and searched by security officers, prosecutor Irfan Fidan said a witness under arrest on suspicion of being a high-level FETO member testified as follows: “The commands to stop National Intelligence Organization [MIT] trucks and to document and disclose the incident were all given by U.S.-based FETO leader Fetullah Gulen”.

Speaking to reporters at Istanbul’s Caglayan Courthouse, Fidan also said that after the trucks were searched, suspected so-called “imam” FETO members made phone calls to the U.S. Embassy in Ankara and the Consulate in Istanbul.

Fidan said that they had asked the U.S. Embassy about the content of the phone calls.

The MIT trucks were stopped in the border province of Adana by local gendarmerie on suspicion they were carrying weapons, despite a national security law forbidding such a search.

The Interior Ministry denied the trucks were supplying arms to groups in northern Syria, saying that in fact they were delivering aid to the Turkmen community in the war-torn country.

A deputy for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and journalists for daily Cumhuriyet have been tried and sentenced for revealing state secrets by leaking and writing about the incident.

- New indictment

Fidan also announced he had filed a new indictment at the 14th High Criminal Court against 55 suspects, including 11 so-called “imams”.

There are currently four other cases regarding the incident.

The alleged FETO members’ phone calls to U.S. representations in Turkey seem to echo an incident in which Adil Oksuz, a top FETO suspect, received a call from the U.S. Istanbul Consulate less than a week after the defeated coup.

Embassy officials said the call concerned Oksuz’s cancelled visa, but Turkish officials have expressed skepticism.

According to the government, FETO and its U.S.-based leader, Fetullah Gulen, orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, which left 250 martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.