Top Turkish military aide confesses to role in coup: Reports

ISTANBUL, Turkey - An aide to the Turkish military’s chief of staff has confessed to his involvement in Friday’s attempted coup to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish media reported on Wednesday.

Lt. Col. Levent Turkkan, aide to General Hulusi Akar, also admitted to being a member of the movement led by Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric living in self-imposed exile in the US whom the government has claimed was behind the plot.

Turkkan's reported confession came hours before Turkey’s National Security Council was set to convene for an extraordinary session to chart a post-coup course for the country which has seen mass detentions and sackings in the wake of the failed attempt.

An announcement, which Erdogan promised earlier this week would be "major" but has remained tip-lipped about since, is expected to be made after the meeting, with a cabinet meeting to follow. 

Turkkan, who was arrested in Ankara soon after the failed coup on 15 July, reportedly admitted his involvement in a written statement to a prosecutor. 

In his confession, Turkkan allegedly said that he learned that the coup was happening on 14 July and was informed that the coup would be carried out at 03:00 local time the following day.

The president, prime minister, ministers, chief of staff and various force commanders, he heard, would all be “rounded up and silently taken care of".

He reportedly explained the origins of his involvement with Gulen's Hizmet movement.

“I come from a poor family. My father was a very poor farmer. I first became acquainted with the Fethullah Gulen community during middle school," he is alleged to have written.

He said he had been assisted by Gulen-linked people since 1989 when they gave him the questions to a military high school entrance exam before he took the test.

Turkkan also said that he had been spying on his superiors as far back as 2011, when he became aide to former Chief of Staff General Necdet Ozel.

Gulen was a former ally of Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). They became implacable foes after alleged Gulen supporters within the police and judiciary launched a corruption probe against Erdogan and his close circle in 2013.

The days since the failed coup have seen a massive crackdown on the military, police and judiciary. All medical personnel at state-run health facilities and civil servants have had their annual leave cancelled.

About 9,000 people including police and government officials have been sacked and 7,500 people detained including top generals accused of masterminding the plot.

Turkey's education ministry said more than 15,000 state education employees had been suspended and all deans were told to resign on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported that a file was found in a judge's office in Istanbul that appeared to be a document that would be used to charge Erdogan, former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Interior Minister Efkan Ala and intelligence chief Hakan Fidan with assisting a terrorist organisation between 2009 and 2015, the years when the Kurdish peace process was underway.

A Turkish official confirmed to MEE that the file had been found in Judge Mehmet Sel's office at the Istanbul courthouse on the Asian side of the city.

Also on Wednesday, the country's Higher Education Board placed a ban on foreign travel for all academics in the country.

A Turkish official said the ban was put in place to prevent flight risk of alleged coup plotters in universities where some are suspected of having had contact with military sources ahead of Friday's actions.

Meanwhile, a government official told the state-run Anadolu news agency on Wednesday that Gulen's state pension and entitlement to other benefits had been annulled.

Gulen's pension dated from his time as a preacher for the state-run Religious Affairs Directorate between 1965 and 1981.