FETO linked to Turkish football match-fixing cases

By Muhammed Enes Can and Murat Kaya

ISTANBUL

An Istanbul prosecutor on Friday filed an indictment alleging football match-fixing allegations from 2011 were part of a plot involving a terrorist network.

Fetullah Gulen, who Turkey says is head of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), is among 108 suspects named in the investigation, the judicial source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, said.

The deputy chief public prosecutor of Istanbul, Fuzuli Aydogdu, prepared and presented the indictment to the attorney general's office to be accepted.

Friday's indictment claims match-fixing charges in 2011 against Turkish football club Fenerbahce’s chairman Aziz Yildirim and other managers were “a plot”.

Yildirim, who was sent to prison in July 2011 and served nearly a year in jail, had been sentenced to six years and three months by a “special-authority court” in 2012.

He and 35 others were acquitted of all charges in the long-running case in October 2015.

The FETO network is a key focus of this investigation; its members in Turkey’s judiciary are accused of orchestrating malicious cases against the football executives.

FETO is accused of orchestrating Turkey’s July 15 coup plot as well as being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through infiltrating Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and the judiciary.

The defeated July 15 coup left 248 people martyred and nearly 2,200 wounded.

* Ilker Girit in Istanbul contributed to this story.