Turkey detains 150 soldiers over alleged coup links – report

11 May, 2018 07:49 / Updated 6 years ago

Turkish police detained 150 soldiers over alleged links to US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen who Ankara says orchestrated an attempted coup in 2016, Anadolu said on Friday. Gulen denies involvement. Those detained were among 300 military personnel, including 211 serving officers, facing arrest in an investigation by Istanbul prosecutors. In similar investigations on Thursday, police detained more than 80 serving air force staff, state media said. Critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuse him of using the failed coup as a pretext to quash dissent.