UPDATE - 22 FETO terror suspects arrested in Turkey

UPDATES WITH ARREST OF FUGITIVE, REVISED HEADLINE

By Abdullah Ozkul, Sahin Oktay, Izzet Mazi

NIGDE / KOCAELI / KAHRAMANMARAS, Turkey (AA) - Turkish security forces arrested 22 more people over their suspected links to the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), the group behind the 2016 defeated coup in Turkey, security sources said on Wednesday.

Six of the suspects were nabbed in the northwestern Kocaeli province as part of a probe into FETO infiltration of the Turkish Armed Forces, said a source on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

The other 16 suspects – including active-duty military personnel and dismissed and retired soldiers – were arrested in simultaneous operations across seven provinces after prosecutors in the central Nigde province issued arrest warrants for them, another source said.

Security forces on Wednesday also nabbed a fugitive who had been sentenced to over six years in jail in the Kahramanmaras province, southeastern Turkey.

According to a statement from the Provincial Gendarmerie Command’s Anti-Terror Branch Directorate, the fugitive, F.K., who was convicted of being a member of FETO, was hiding in Kahramanmaras’s Goksun district.

After legal procedures, F.K. was handed over to a prison, said the statement.

FETO and its US-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, in which 251 people were killed and 2,734 injured.

Ankara also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.

*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz and Busra Nur Cakmak in Ankara