[AlAhram] ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
has dismissed 87 staff from its spy agency over alleged links to the failed July 15 coup, state media said Tuesday, in the first purge of one of the country's most powerful institutions.
The National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) has suspended 141 personnel in an internal probe over links to US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen
... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world...
who Ankara alleges was behind the coup.
Of these, 87 have now been expelled. They will no longer be able to work in another state institution after their dismissal, the Anadolu news agency reported. Criminal complaints have been lodged against 52 of them, it added.
Turkey has fired tens of thousands of people from state institutions following the attempted putsch but this was the first announcement of dismissals from the powerful spy agency.
Turkey's secret service was widely criticised for not warning authorities about the coup bid and the government has acknowledged a vacuum in gathering intelligence.
There had been intense speculation over the future of spy chief Hakan Fidan after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him...
publicly said intelligence lapses had helped the coup. The Turkish strongman had admitted he himself found about the coup not from the intelligence service but from his brother-in-law, and that he had been unable to reach Fidan on the night of the putsch.
Fidan was named to head MIT by Erdogan in May 2010 after serving as his foreign policy adviser for three years. Erdogan, who described Fidan as his "secret keeper", had made no secret of his discontent when the spy chief in February 2015 resigned as head of MIT with the aim of becoming an MP from the president's ruling party. But Fidan later withdrew his candidacy and remained at the top of the intelligence service.
In a picture that sparked a frenzy on social media, the previously clean-shaven Fidan was shown in a meeting with the president in the aftermath of the coup in July with a moustache. Several top ministers, including Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, have grown facial hair in recent months in what is widely seen as a sign of loyalty to the moustachioed head of state.
The MIT is one of Turkey's most secretive but powerful organizations, handling issues ranging from internal security to the sensitive areas of foreign policy.
In a separate development, Turkish police carried out operations in 18 provinces including in the mega city Istanbul in search of 121 suspects linked to the charity organization Kimse Yok Mu?, which had been shut down by authorities after the coup along with other Gulen-linked groups, Anadolu reported. They detained 41 suspects while 77 were abroad, two jugged
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
as part of unrelated probes, and one was still on the lam.
The suspects stand accused of several charges including "membership of an gang" and "financing terror."
On a key visit to Turkey, Britannia's colourful foreign minister Boris Johnson condemned the July coup bid as a "deeply sinister" attack on Turkish democracy. He said the Gulen community "seems to me to have many aspects of a cult" and vowed to take action if necessary against affiliated groups in Britannia.