Former Chief of Gendarmerie Intelligence Major General (ret.) İbrahim Aydın said the MİT truck incidents were staged by Fetullah Terrorists Organization (FETÖ) to put President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a tight spot.
İbrahim Aydın told a parliamentary commission on Turkey's thwarted July 15 military coup attempt, in a special hearing session, that the MİT trucks incident was organized by FETÖ members.
In January 2014, several Syria-bound aid trucks carrying humanitarian supplies to the Turkmen community were stopped by the local gendarmerie in southern Adana and Hatay provinces, on the grounds that they were loaded with ammunition, despite a national security law forbidding such a search because the trucks belonged to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT).
They aimed to turn the incident into a plot inside the gendarmerie division, the former general said.
“The MİT trucks incident on Jan. 19 was completely a coup attempt. It targeted our President but later attempted to turn into a plot inside gendarmerie," he told the commission.
It aimed to put President Erdoğan in a difficult situation both inside and outside Turkey, he added.
Aydın also told the commission that the July 15 coup attempt was not only a deadly attack by FETÖ, but a geopolitical coup attempt against the Turkish state.
The deadly coup attempt that martyred more than 240 people, also targeted Turkish military, he noted, adding that the force behind the coup tried to set up the Turkish military against the Turkish nation.
FETÖ, a terrorist group led by U.S.-based cult leader Fetullah Gülen, has been attempting to overthrow the Turkish government on several occasions in the last three years, as they staged their latest attack on Turkish democracy by attempting a deadly coup on July 15, 2016.
More than 240 people have been martyred and some 2,200 others were wounded on the coup night as FETÖ elements within the Turkish military used tanks, combat helicopters and fighter jets to attack the civilians who had protested the coup attempt.
