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Amid allegations of a new coup attempt against the government and president, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya issued a lengthy statement on Wednesday. Yerlikaya said they would destroy “the conspiracy” and bring the culprits to justice.
Three high-ranking police officers, including the deputy police chief of the capital Ankara, were recently suspended in an investigation into a plot against the government and politicians. Media reports claimed that three men attempted to ensnare prominent politicians in a graft probe by employing a secret eyewitness. Allegations were eerily similar to a plot by the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), which utilized its infiltrators in law enforcement and judiciary to topple the government in 2013 by fabricated allegations against government officials in a graft probe.
Yerlikaya said in a social media post that they would destroy “plots and traps” against the president, government and politicians through “tactics of FETÖ and through collaboration with terrorist groups and criminal gangs.”
The alleged plot was uncovered when a so-called secret eyewitness was exposed. He was a suspected member of a criminal gang led by Ayhan Bora Kaplan, who was arrested last year. Police officers reportedly sought to employ eyewitnesses in an investigation where they would implicate names close to the government and the government’s main ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
The interior minister listed the ministry’s accomplishments in cracking down on gangs, organized crime and espionage networks and said they would crack down on those who try to “disrupt our struggle against crime,” through “secret eyewitness tactics.” FETÖ was implicated in a string of investigations in past years where it is accused of recruiting “eyewitnesses” to further cases based on false allegations to imprison its critics, from generals to politicians and journalists.
“We will uncover networks targeting our president, government and politicians wherever institution they are hiding at and will bring them to justice,” he said.
Yerlikaya noted that inspectors of the Interior Ministry will soon conclude their report on the case and it would be shared with the public.
