A court in the southeastern Turkish province of Şanlıurfa has ruled for the arrest of a former general accused of using his official car to smuggle people from Syria into Turkey, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
The former general, Bilal Çokay, was detained in Ankara earlier this week and taken to Şanlıurfa, where he faces an investigation.
Defense ministry sources confirmed his detention on Thursday, without saying when or where it took place.
Çokay was arrested by a court in the Akçakale district.
Journalist Barış Terkoğlu of the Cumhuriyet daily was the first to report on the incident in May. He said the authorities ordered the search of a car that would normally be exempt from routine checks and discovered that the vehicle was the official car of then-brigadier general Çokay and was being used to smuggle people across the border in exchange for money. The general’s adjutant and bodyguard, who were involved in the operation, were arrested.
Terkoğlu’s attempts to reach the deputy minister of defense for an official statement were unsuccessful.
Ministry sources later confirmed that Çokay was under investigation and was forced to retire.
The adjutant and bodyguard are under criminal investigation and were discharged from the army, Terkoğlu wrote.
Turkey has established direct control over swaths of land in northern Syria through successive offensives against Kurdish militia groups since 2018.
Rights groups and organizations that monitor the region have since accused Turkish soldiers and Turkish-backed rebels of committing war crimes against the local population during cross-border offensives.
According to the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) World Migration Report 2024, Turkey is the leading host country for refugees worldwide, with nearly 3.6 million seeking shelter, mainly from war-torn Syria.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government are criticized for pursuing an open-door policy for refugees and allowing them into the country without any controls in place.
