Germany indicts Turkish national for spying on alleged Gülen network members

German federal prosecutors have announced that they had indicted a Turkish national for alleged spying on individuals that he associated with the network of cleric Fethullah Gülen who died last month in the US.

This file photo shows cleric Fethullah Gülen.

Reuters & Duvar English

German federal prosecutors on Nov. 29 said they had indicted a Turkish national for alleged spying on individuals that he associated with cleric Fethullah Gülen.

The suspect, who is not in jail and was only identified as Mehmet K., in line with German privacy laws, contacted Turkey's police and intelligence service via anonymous letters, prosecutors added.

Gülen built a powerful Islamic movement in Turkey and beyond, but spent his later years in the U.S. mired in accusations of orchestrating an attempted coup against Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2016.

More than 150,000 government employees have been dismissed or suspended from their jobs since the failed coup in 2016, in what the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government says is an effort to cleanse the state apparatus of Gülenists, though among those purged have included high numbers of Kurds, leftists, and union members.

Gülen died last month.