At least 115 suspects, including former soldiers, were arrested Thursday for being linked to the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETÖ), the group behind last year’s defeated coup in Turkey, according to a security official.
Among them were 10 former members of the Council of State who were arrested in Ankara after prosecutors issued warrants for 13 suspects.
In the northern Corum province, six suspects were arrested for using FETO’s encrypted smartphone messaging app ByLock, said the official, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.
According to Turkish authorities, ByLock was a means of communication among members of FETO, which orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016 that left 250 people martyred and some 2,200 others injured.
Police arrested 61 FETÖ suspects, including former soldiers from 11 provinces, as part of an operation based in the central Anatolian city of Eskisehir, according to a judicial source.
In a separate operation in the southwest province of Antalya, police also arrested 18 people for their alleged links to FETÖ.
Another eight people, including a lawyer, were taken into custody in Ceyhan in the southern province of Adana in an ongoing investigation into the same terrorist group.
They are accused of sharing pro-FETÖ messages on social media, as prosecutors in Ceyhan district issued warrants for 16 people.
Police in the western province of Manisa also lunched a simultaneous raid in nine provinces and detained 10 suspects as part of a FETÖ probe.
Two fugitive FETÖ suspects were also arrested in a separate raid in Manisa.
Some of the suspects are believed to use the ByLock app.
The arrests came after Eskişehir prosecutors issued warrants for 66 suspected FETÖ members, including fighter pilots, earlier in the day, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media.
Turkey also accuses FETÖ of a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.
