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1,000 police detained in raids in Turkey

ISTANBUL — More than a thousand Turkish police officers, accused of being “secret imams” for a U.S.-based cleric who the authorities have said was responsible for a failed coup in July, were detained on Wednesday in the largest such sweep in months. The interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, said officers had detained 1,009 people whom he described as high-ranking members of the Islamic group led by the cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States. According to Soylu, the “secret imams” were part of a parallel leadership structure within the police force that was ultimately answerable to Gulen, whose extradition has long been sought by Turkish authorities. The raids were a “most important step toward uncovering a group that leaked into the police force, trying to rule the police force from outside, trying to establish an almost alternative police organization, ignoring the rules of the state,” Soylu said, in remarks quoted by Anadolu, the state-owned news agency.

 

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