Turkish gov’t planned a campaign of arrest prior to coup attempt, classified document shows

Levent Kenez

A review of a confidential Turkish military document reveals how the first group of more than 7,000 people who were taken into custody within 72 hours of a failed coup in Turkey on July 15, 2016 were flagged for detention and imprisonment long before.

Nordic Monitor obtained a list of individuals who were detained countrywide within three days of the abortive putsch that indicates thousands of members of the judiciary and other officers of the court had been profiled before the July 15 events and detained without any credible evidence linking them to the failed coup. The scale of detentions and arrests immediately after the incident reinforces the widespread criticism that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has used the coup attempt as a pretext to clamp down on dissent and jail several hundred thousand critics on charges of alleged terrorism, while tens of thousands of civil servants have been dismissed from their jobs by presidential decrees.

Consisting of 7,023 suspects, the list prepared by the General Staff is apparently a compilation of internal memos and detention reports sent by the police between July 15 and 18, 2016. Many typos and the absence of some essential information — seven persons were recorded without any surnames, 205 without any profession or place of detention and 123 without a date of detention — gives the impression that it was created haphazardly, most likely for the purpose of immediate submission to a higher authority.

The list comprises every detainee’s first name, surname, profession, name of the relevant detention center and the city in which it is located, and the date and status of the detainee at the time.

Of the 6,818 suspects whose professions were identified, 5,808 were military personnel including cadets, 94 were police officers, mostly chiefs, and 917 were civilians.

The most striking data that appear in the number of civilians detained is that 90 percent of them were judges and prosecutors who had nothing to do with the failed coup. Three hundred thirty-six prosecutors and 490 judges, 826 in total, were detained in the early hours of the coup attempt. It was later revealed that Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor Serdar Coşkun had sent a list of 2,745 names of members of the judiciary to police stations across Turkey ordering their detention and subsequent arrest a few hours after the abortive putsch began, a clear indication that those people critical of the government were profiled long before the coup attempt given the fact that such a list cannot be drawn up overnight.

Turkey arrested 2,417 members of the judiciary during the post-coup crackdown and handed down lengthy prison sentences to most of them. As of today 510 judges and prosecutors are still in pretrial detention. A total of 4,238 have been purged from their jobs over the course of three years. Fifty-eight officers of the court who were believed to be court clerks were indicated on the list as detained.

Surprisingly, there were two teachers, four students, one shopkeeper and one housewife among the detained civilians.

A significant detail in the list concerns civilians detained near Akıncılar Airbase in Ankara who are claimed to have been civilian perpetrators of the coup attempt. Four of them were listed (with minor typos), whereas there is no record for Adil Öksüz, who is allegedly affiliated with the Gülen movement, which the government accuses of orchestrating the coup attempt. The leader of the movement, Fethullah Gülen, denied any close relations with Öksüz and pointed to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) for Öksüz’s role in the coup. Öksüz was inexplicably released a few days after his detention. However, it is still not clear how prime suspect Öksüz could be released when so many were arrested. All suspects who were accused of allegedly playing a role in his release were recently acquitted. Öksüz remains at large. Turkey’s main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu had claimed in 2017 that Öksüz was freed by a law that protects members of intelligence organizations from detention or prosecution without the consent of the prime minister. The founder of the counterterrorism department of MİT, Mehmet Eymür, previously said that Öksüz was affiliated with MİT.

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Of the 5,808 non-civilians on the list, 1,461 were military officers, 488 noncommissioned officers, 3,098 conscripted privates and 761 were military cadets. One hundred thirteen generals and admirals were detained immediately after the coup attempt. According to the official count, 8,651 military personnel took part in the coup, corresponding to only 1.5 percent of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Of them, 1,761 were conscripted privates and 1,214 were military cadets. Given the fact that some 150 generals and thousands of officers are now being tried on coup charges, Nordic Monitor previously published that military experts who were interviewed found it odd that such an insignificant number of troops took part in the coup attempt. 

Top officers who were detained within hours of the coup attempt are claimed to have been profiled as critics by MİT. For instance, four-star Gen. Akın Öztürk, the most senior officer behind bars, was tasked with negotiating with the putschists by the now-retired commander of the Turkish Air Forces, the General Staff officially announced on its website right after the failed coup.

Lt. Gen. Erdal Öztürk ordered officers and military personnel under his command not to leave their stations or to return immediately their stations on live TV on the night of July 15, stressing that the coup attempt was illegal and that personnel involved would be tried. However, Öztürk could not avoid arrest the day after. He was wrongly recorded as “released on probation.”

Sixty-five percent of the suspects were detained in two major cities, 2,393 in İstanbul and 2,093 in Ankara. Surprisingly only 119 people were taken into custody in İzmir, Turkey’s third largest city. In a large number of cities in Anatolia, not a single person affiliated with the military was detained in the first-three-day campaign, whereas judges and prosecutors did not share the same luck. It is quite odd that only one teacher was briefly detained in Nevşehir, a Central Anatolian city.

The list also includes notorious sports halls-turned-detention centers such as Başkent and Anıttepe, where detainees were subjected to beatings, maltreatment, rape and other sexual assault. In a classified letter widely circulated among media outlets in September 2016, the acting deputy head of the Turkish National Police warned all officers about a visit by Juan E. Mendez, the UN special rapporteur on torture, and ordered them to avoid using sports facilities as detention centers during his delegation’s stay in the country. The official also asked police officers to abide by the international rules of detention while the delegation was in-country and ordered them to reorganize all detention centers and make them ready for inspection as soon as possible. The Erdoğan government later postponed Mendez’s scheduled visit.