Turkish businessman kidnapped by MİT and wanted in Tajikistan for his links to Gülen

Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization on Sunday illegally surrendered a Turkish businessman who had lived in Tajikistan for 28 years and was wanted by Turkey for his ties to the Gülen movement, a faith group banned by Ankara, according to a special report from the Turkish National Intelligence Agency. Kronos News Site.

Businessman Koray Vural was kidnapped by unknown assailants in the Tajik capital Dushanbe on Saturday morning, according to a special report by Sevinç Özarslan of the Kronos news site.

According to the report citing eyewitness accounts, Vural, 46, a permanent resident of Tajikistan, was abducted around 9:30 a.m. local time as he got out of his car in front of his restaurant, Özyurt Restaurant, in Dushanbe. He was apprehended by eight individuals and brought to Turkey on Sunday morning.

A family member who spoke to Kronos said: “He is a well-known person in Tajikistan. Eight people took him away as he got out of his car. Initially, we learned that he was being held by the security services of Tajikistan, but his wife could not find him despite requests everywhere.

Graduating with a degree in English teaching from Tajikistan State University, Vural also earned his doctorate in the country. Initially working as a teacher in Tajikistan, he later went into business and established the Özyurt restaurant.

This is the second kidnapping in the last three months in Tajikistan. On July 4, teacher Emsal Koç, who had lived in Tajikistan for 29 years, was removed in front of his home and taken to Türkiye.

Vural, a father of three, was the subject of legal proceedings in 2017 as part of investigations targeting the Gülen movement at the 10th High Criminal Court in Bursa.

Following a coup attempt in 2016, the Turkish government launched a massive crackdown on non-loyalist citizens, particularly members of the Gülen religious movement, under the pretext of fighting the coup.

The Turkish government accuses the Gülen movement of orchestrating the failed coup, despite the fact that the movement strongly denies any involvement in the abortive putsch.

Although the Turkish government has classified the movement as a terrorist organization, none of its Western allies have fallen for Ankara’s representation and view the group as a civic initiative focused on educational activities. Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, lives in exile in the United States, which has refused to extradite him to Turkey on the grounds that there is no substantial evidence that he committed a crime.

Born in 1977, Vural arrived in Dushanbe to study at university in 1994. After graduating, he worked in various educational institutions as a teacher and administrator. He became a businessman in 2016, representing different companies. Vural, whose passport expired in 2020 and was not renewed by Turkish authorities, was residing in the country with a permanent residence permit.

Vural had already applied to the United Nations for resettlement to a safe country and hoped the process would conclude soon.

Since the attempted coup in Turkey, the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has resorted to extra-legal methods to secure the return of his critics after his official extradition requests were refused.

More recently, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), in its first resolution condemning all forms of transnational repression as a growing threat to the rule of law and human rights, revealed the tactics used by countries, including Turkey, to suppress their criticism abroad.

In a joint letter, UN rapporteurs accused the Turkish government of engaging in a systematic practice of state-sponsored extraterritorial kidnappings and forced returns to Turkey, with at least 100 Turkish nationals transferred from several states towards Turkey.

The Turkish MIT confirmed in its annual report that it had carried out forced return operations of more than 100 people suspected of having links with the Gülen movement.

“…(More than) 100 members of the (Gülen movement) from different countries were brought to Turkey thanks to (the agency’s) increased operational capacity abroad,” the 2022 MİT report said.

Former MIT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan took over as foreign minister after President Erdoğan was given five more years to lead the country in May elections. Fidan had been the head of Turkish intelligence since 2010.

The former head of the intelligence services is said to be behind the kidnapping of dozens of Turkish dissidents abroad by various methods, the kidnappings and forced renditions mainly involving individuals suspected of links with the Gülen movement.

Local mafia groups and intelligence services were allegedly employed in the kidnappings which took place mainly in countries in Africa, the Balkans and Southeast Asia.

After Fidan, Erdoğan appointed his spokesperson, İbrahim Kalın, as head of MIT.

Kalın is a long-time confidant of President Erdoğan, has served as presidential spokesperson and foreign policy advisor to the president since 2014.

He holds a Ph.D. He holds a doctorate in Islamic studies from George Washington University and was a founder of SETA, a pro-government think tank based in Ankara.

Kalın has spearheaded several diplomatic efforts in recent years, shaping Turkey’s foreign policy agenda.

Erdoğan has targeted supporters of the Gülen movement, inspired by Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations from December 17 to 25, 2013, which involved former Prime Minister Erdoğan, members of his family and his entourage.

Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a plot against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement a terrorist organization and began targeting its members. He intensified his repression of the movement after the aborted 2016 putsch, which he accused Gülen of organizing, an accusation Gülen strongly denies.

Former Vice President Fuat Oktay said in a speech to parliament that Turkish agents had conducted “diplomacy” with their counterparts in countries where Turkish nationals had been kidnapped.

A report by the Stockholm Center for Freedom, published in October 2021, titled “Turkey’s Transnational Repression: Abduction, Rendition and Forced Return of Erdoğan Critics,” focused on how President Erdoğan’s Turkish government used extrajudicial and illegal methods for the forced transfer. to Turkey from its citizens abroad.