The brother of former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was allegedly detained as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement, which the government accuses of masterminding a failed coup on July 15.
According to a column penned on Jan. 12 by İsmet Özçelik, a columnist for the Aydınlık daily, the reason Davutoğlu does not appear in the media is the brief detention of his brother over Gülen links.
“Everybody in Ankara is talking about these claims. We asked Davutoğlu’s inner circle about it. He said he [his brother] was briefly detained and then released. The exact date of his detention is unknown. They are keeping it secret,” Özçelik wrote.
Davutoğlu, who left his position as prime minister to Binali Yıldırım on May 24, 2016 after differences with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been accused of holding a secret meeting with Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, whose teachings inspired the Gülen movement, in September 2013. In that visit he was said to have been accompanied by then-President Abdullah Gül, who later claimed that he was not informed of the trip. Davutoğlu did not refer to this discrepancy in his lengthy reply to the panel. (Turkey Purge)