The lawyer for the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party was detained on Friday over alleged ties to the Fetullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO), a court official said.
Celal Celik represents Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Kilicdaroglu slammed the arrest.
“The fight made in the name of ‘fighting FETO’ is just made to support FETO,” he said, speaking to journalists in Turkey’s parliament. “This is an abdication of reason; what can I say?”
The court official said Celik was arrested at his home in the capital Ankara, and detained as part of an investigation by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office into lawyers with alleged links to the network of US-based Fetullah Gulen.
Ankara accuses Gulen of masterminding the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, a charge Gulen denies. FETO is the acronym Ankara uses for the Gulen network.
Celik is accused of being close to a former science, technology and communications adviser to Kilicdaroglu, Fatih Gursul, who was detained in December over alleged links to Gulen.
Police are conducting a search of Celik’s home and he is due to be transferred to Istanbul, the official added.
Celik worked in the Supreme Court between 2008 and 2011.
Kilicdaroglu said his lawyer had resigned from his post as an investigating judge in the court “which was under the control of FETO” at that time.
“He was a man who resigned from there … reacting against the existence of FETO,” Kilicdaroglu said.
Almost 250 people were killed and more than 2,000 wounded when rogue military units attempted to overthrow the government and president on July 15, 2016.
Turkey’s government also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.
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