Two ex-sergeants reveal FETÖ link behind their dismissal

Mert Gökhan Koç – ANKARA





Mehmet Çakır, 28, and Erhan Yılmaz, 27, then stationed at the Çiğli 2nd Main Jet Air Base Commandership in the Aegean province of İzmir, were first suspended and then dismissed after they forcibly signed a statement record stating that the two had engaged in actions regarded as “immoral and undisciplined” by allegedly “having 600 girlfriends, having group sex and using drugs in their private life.”



“They have nested into the 2nd Main Jet Air Base, and we have fallen into this nest. Our last five years are gone. They have erased everything during ages when perhaps we would have gotten married and engaged in life,” said the two, adding that FETÖ-linked officers carried out a probe into the base’s young commissioned and non-commissioned officers.



“A commissioned and non-commissioned officer intelligence personnel said: ‘We will ask you some questions with the authority given by the Air Force commander. Do not lie.’ They interrogated us after keeping us waiting for four hours in a room. In the interrogation they posed allegations saying, ‘You have 600 girlfriends. You are having group sex. You are using drugs in your personal life.’ As we entered [the room] some half an hour after, there was a statement record in front of us. It contained the allegations against us. I said, ‘I am not signing it.’ They called a staff colonel and he said, ‘You will sign it or I will get you dismissed for disobedience,’” said the sergeants, adding that they signed the record and were later suspended for months until they were called and told of their dismissal.



“Since we did not conclude 10 years [of military service], we were also levied a debt worth 23,000 Turkish Liras. We appealed to the Military High Administrative Court but were rejected and later found out that there were judges linked to FETÖ there too,” said the men, who are now pursuing their education at Turkey’s prestigious Middle East Technical University in Ankara, studying mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering.



The dismissals of two former staff sergeants after a probe carried out into uncorroborated allegations that they were “having group sex and drinking alcohol” in 2012 have revealed the extent of the outlawed Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) members’ powerful and organized nesting inside the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), which is now planned to go through a major civil overhaul.