A Turkish court has ordered an official to be reinstated after rejecting that he could possibly have been a member of not just one but four ‘terror’ groups, all with different ideologies.
Volkan Ayhan was fired from his post at Turkey’s Employment Agency (ISKUR) in a purge of officials following the failed coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July 2016 coup where he was allegedly found to be linked him with the Gülen organization, as well as the PKK, the MKP and the DHKP-C.
The original investigation over whether Ayhan was an alleged member of the Gulan movement – believed to be behind the coup attempt by the Turkish government, was launched by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in the southwestern Turkish province of Mugla.
Investigators also claimed that he sympathised with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, among others.
The fired official applied to a commission which handles the cases of workers sacked during the decree of a state of emergency after the coup attempt and asked to be reinstated to his job in the employment agency.
However, the commission reportedly rejected his application in June 2018, claiming that Ayhan was also active in the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C), a Marxist-Leninist party classified as a terrorist group in Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.
The commission also claimed they had been tipped-off that he was a sympathiser for the Maoist Communist Party (MKP), a group branded as an insurgent organisation in Turkey.
Ayhan then filed a lawsuit with an administrative court in the capital Ankara asking for the commission’s decision to be cancelled.
The court found that there were inconsistencies in the investigation, tip-offs and commission’s ruling, with the former official having been accused of being a member or sympathiser for four different terrorist organisations in total.
The court cancelled the commission’s decision and ordered for Ayhan to be reinstated to his post.
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Story By: Alex Cope, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Newsflash
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