Erdogan’s former bodyguards arrested for espionage
Former bodyguards of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — allegedly Gulenists — have been arrested on charges of espionage, accused of planting bugs in Erdogan’s office.
In my June 4 article for Al-Monitor, I reported a Turkish government decision to close down all police academies on the grounds they have come under the full control of the Islamist Gulenist organization. The higher echelons of the state — President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Chief of General Staff Necdet Ozel, National Intelligence Organization (MIT) chief Hakan Fidan as well as ministers and senior bureaucrats — all agreed on the threat the Gulenists pose. The government said the Gulenists had entrenched themselves within the state in a secret hierarchy of their own.
No objections came to the decision from the opposition parties either, for they had long claimed that a secret Gulenist structure existed within the intelligence services, the military, the judiciary and the police. The opposition had also maintained that some high-profile judicial cases in recent years had been fabricated by Gulenists and harshly criticized the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on the issue.
