Turkey: Reported kidnapping plot ‘ludicrous’

Turkey on Sunday denied a report that its officials were part of a plot to kidnap a Muslim cleric in the U.S. that allegedly involved former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

{mosads}The Turkish embassy in Washington on Saturday called the report “utterly false, ludicrous and groundless.”

Press Release of the Embassy of Turkey Regarding Recent Allegations on the Extradition of Fetullah Gulen, November 11, 2017 pic.twitter.com/7nhtp4qSPv

— TurkishEmbassyDC (@TurkishEmbassy) November 11, 2017

“The fact that Fethullah Gulen who is the mastermind behind all these crimes continues to find refuge in the United States remains, perplexing and deeply frustrating for the Turkish people,” the embassy said in a statement. 

Turkish officials say Gülen, a political rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is behind a 2016 coup in which 250 people were killed and more than 2,000 others were wounded. The embassy also said in its statement that the cleric’s network tried to assassinate the Turkish president and bombed the Turkish parliament.

Nearly 50,000 people in Turkey have been jailed and more than 100,000 civil servants have been fired from their jobs for alleged links to the cleric’s network, The Associated Press reported.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the alleged plot to remove Gülen, who lives in Pennsylvania, and deliver him to Turkish officials.

Flynn and his son would have been paid as much as $15 million for their participation, according to the Journal’s sources. Flynn had already been picked as President Trump’s national security adviser at the time. 

Lawyers for Flynn denied the reports, calling them “outrageous and prejudicial.”