The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office is seeking a prison sentence of 15 years for former Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç’s son-in-law Ekrem Yeter on charges that he has links to the faith-based Gülen movement, accused by the Turkish government of orchestrating a failed coup last July.
An indictment seeking 15 years in prison has been filed for Yeter, who was released four days after being arrested in June by a court in Ankara on charges of “membership in a terrorist organization,” due to his membership in the Gülen movement.
The indictment accuses Yeter of maintaining his relations with the Gülen movement after two corruption investigations became public in late 2013, implicating senior members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and depositing TL 41,000 in his account at Bank Asya, which was confiscated by the Turkish government in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt due to its links to the Gülen movement.
The indictment claims that Yeter deposited the money in his bank account after a call by Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, to save the bank from a government-led financial crisis.
Yeter, who was working as an associate professor in the cardiology department of Yıldırım Beyazıt University’s medical faculty in Ankara, was among the thousands of people 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 the failed coup attempt.