Former Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy İdris Şahin, who was detained last week as part of an investigation into a failed military coup in July, was released on Monday following his interrogation by a prosecutor.
Şahin was released before he appeared in court.
In addition to Şahin, businessmen Kasım Akçakaya, Ahmet Ak and Murat Dönmez were also released after they were referred to the Çankırı Courthouse on Monday. The businessmen were detained last week on coup charges.
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 AKP government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
Despite Gülen and the movement having denied the accusation and calling for an international investigation, Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government launched a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
Some 86,000 people have been purged from state bodies, nearly 41,000 detained and 22,000 arrested since the coup attempt. Arrestees included journalists, judges, prosecutors, police and military officers, academics, governors and even a comedian.