Turkish intelligence services arrested abroad and repatriated a preacher’s nephew Fethullah Gülen, arch enemy of the president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, operation classified as “kidnapping” by close associates of the opponent.

The preacher’s nephew, Saladin Gülen, was taken to Turkey by agents of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) after having detained him abroad, said the state press agency Anadolu, which did not specify in which country the arrest took place.

However, in a video posted on social media on May 20, the captured man’s wife claimed that they were living in Kenya and that she had not heard from her husband since May 3. Saladin Gülen was a teacher at a school in Nairobi.

People and media linked to the movement of Fethullah Gülen They declared in social networks that Saladin Gülen had been “kidnapped” in Kenya and they launched a campaign to demand his release.

The Turkish authorities accuse the detainee of belonging to the “Fetö terrorist organization”, an acronym Ankara uses to refer to the movement of the preacher Fethullah Gülen, whom Erdogan accuses of having engineered a coup attempt in July 2016.

The preacher, who resides in the United States, affirms that he runs a peaceful network of NGOs and companies and denies any involvement in the attempted coup.

The failed coup led to unprecedented purges, with tens of thousands of arrests and more than 140,000 public employees removed or suspended from their duties.

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