Ekrem Yeter, the son-in-law of former Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, who was arrested by a court after his detention in Ankara on June 5 as part of an investigation into the faith-based Gülen movement, was released by a court on Friday.
He was facing charges of membership in a terrorist organization.
Yeter, who was working as an associate professor in the cardiology department of Yıldırım Beyazıt University’s medical faculty in Ankara, was among thousands dismissed from their jobs in September of last year as part of government decrees issued under a state of emergency declared in the wake of a failed coup attempt in July 2016.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
According to a report by the state-run Anadolu news agency on May 28, 154,694 individuals have been detained and 50,136 have been jailed due to alleged Gülen links since the failed coup attempt.