Hasan Kürklü, the former governor of Bursa province, was arrested on Tuesday and jailed in Antalya province on charges of alleged links to the Gülen movement, which the Turkish government accuses of being behind a failed coup last year.
According to the T24 website, a court in Antalya ruled for the arrest of Kürklü and put him in pretrial detention as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement overseen by the Antalya Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Kürklü was Burdur governor from 2014 to 2016 and was suspended on Sept. 15.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed 249 people and wounded more than a thousand others.
Immediately after the putsch the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President 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.
Turkey’s Justice Ministry announced on July 13 that 50,510 people have been arrested and 169,013 have been the subject of legal proceedings on coup charges since the failed coup.
Turkey has suspended or dismissed more than 150,000 civil servants, including governors, judges, prosecutors, teachers, soldiers and police, since July 15 through government decrees issued as part of the state of emergency.
