The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on Friday issued detention warrants for 78 senior executives of Bank Asya, which was confiscated by the Turkish government in the aftermath of a failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016 due to its links to the Gülen movement, the Cumhuriyet daily reported on Friday.
Forty-seven of the 78 executives have been detained so far on suspicion of membership in an armed terrorist organization and financing a terrorist organization.
The military coup attempt on July 15 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.
The Turkish government took control of Bank Asya in February 2015 and seized it in May 2015. The bank was completely confiscated and closed down following the failed coup attempt.
Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli stated in May that the AKP government seized a total of 942 companies with a total value of TL 40.5 billion since a failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
The total equity capital of the seized companies is TL18.1 billion, while their combined turnover is TL 21.5 billion, according to state-run Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) report.
The number of employees in the seized companies is 44,868.