U.S. Not Persuaded to Extradite Imam Over Turkey Coup
wsj.com · by Devlin Barrett · August 4, 2016
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaking in Ankara on Thursday. Photo: Kayhan Ozer/Associated Press
U.S. officials don’t expect to extradite an imam Turkey blames for masterminding a failed coup because they aren’t convinced by the evidence Ankara has presented and are troubled by threatening public statements from Turkish officials, according to people familiar with the discussions.
U.S. and Turkish officials have privately discussed scenarios under which Fethullah Gulen might be extradited, but American authorities have yet to be persuaded there is a valid case for extradition, these people said. Mr. Gulen, who lives in rural Pennsylvania, has denied playing any role in the plot to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The more Turkish officials, including the president and prime minister, talk publicly about Mr. Gulen’s alleged role in the coup and demand his immediate transfer, the less likely such a transfer becomes, the people said. Such comments raise questions about the potential fairness of Mr. Gulen’s treatment in Turkey, they said.
No final decision has been made, and the extradition discussions are expected to go on for months, these people said. Still, among people familiar with the discussions, several said they couldn't now envision a scenario in which Mr. Gulen is ultimately turned over to Turkish authorities.
Lawyers for Mr. Gulen didn't immediately comment.
Turkish officials said they have yet to present their full case for extradition to the U.S. and that the discussions are ongoing. They said they expect to present new evidence to their American counterparts in coming weeks that they believe will highlight the links between Mr. Gulen and the coup plotters.
U.S. intelligence officials said Washington didn't give high priority to surveillance of Mr. Gulen’s supporters in Turkey before the coup, so the U.S. has little intelligence of its own to back up the information that Turkish authorities say they are obtaining through interrogations of the alleged plotters.
U.S. officials also said the circumstances under which Mr. Erdogan has rounded up domestic opponents since the coup has added to their doubts about the trustworthiness of the evidence.
Turkey has demanded that Mr. Gulen, 75 years old, be extradited because, they say, he directed the failed coup which led to the deaths of 271 people, though Turkey hasn't made a formal request. U.S. officials have asked Turkey to provide their evidence for this assertion.
Turkish officials said two batches of evidence have been provided, but the Americans view the evidence provided to date by the Turks as not usable in court, according to people familiar with the matter.
Fethullah Gulen sitting in his residence in Saylorsburg, Pa., in 2014. Photo: Selahattin Sevi/Associated Press
U.S. officials are skeptical, for example, that statements by alleged coup-plotters implicating Mr. Gulen weren't coerced, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Last month the country’s prime minister, Binali Yildirim, told The Wall Street Journal, “The evidence is crystal clear. We know the terrorist cult responsible for vicious attacks against us and the Turkish people…We simply cannot understand why the U.S. just can’t hand over this individual.’’
On Wednesday, a Turkish court issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Gulen for allegedly giving the instructions for the coup, a claim he has denied.
Mr. Erdogan has called Mr. Gulen and his supporters a terrorist network, a charge that U.S. officials have long discounted. Turkey in May officially designated Mr. Gulen’s network a terrorist organization, making membership a crime under Turkish law. Mr. Erdogan’s government has pressed the Obama administration since the coup to extradite Mr. Gulen, arguing that it is part of the broader campaign against terrorism. At times, the Turkish leader’s aides have said Ankara would view as hostile foreign governments that gave sanctuary to leaders of the Gulen movement.
The issue of extradition is a thorny one for U.S.-Turkish relations. Turks consider the failed coup a national trauma akin to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S., and Turkish public opinion strongly supports the claim of Mr. Gulen’s involvement.
Senior Turkish officials have said that the U.S. relationship is a vital one to Turkey and that the presidential palace has no plans to jeopardize that relationship. The Turkish government does have levers of influence, as the Incirlik air base is where a significant portion of U.S. assets in the fight against Islamic State are based.
The U.S. and Turkey have also discussed whether Turkey might request Mr. Gulen’s extradition on a simpler legal matter—a long-running Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into whether financial crimes were committed at U.S. schools linked to Mr. Gulen.
But in that investigation, officials don't believe they have a case that would merit charges against Mr. Gulen, although the investigation is still proceeding against some school officials. Defenders of the schools have said allegations of financial improprieties surrounding the schools are without merit.
Since the attempted coup in mid-July, U.S. and other Western officials have grown increasingly alarmed by Turkey’s crackdown on military officers, legal officials and others it says played a part in the aborted takeover. Officials fear Mr. Erdogan is using the coup as a pretext to purge longtime foes.
The standoff over Mr. Gulen could exacerbate those tensions. The current back-and-forth over the cleric represents a sharp escalation of what has been a long-simmering disagreement between the U.S. and Turkey over the man who founded an education-centered movement among Muslims often referred to as Hizmet, or service.
Mr. Gulen moved to the U.S. in 1999. For years Turkish authorities have suggested to U.S. investigators that Mr. Gulen and his close advisers merited investigation as possible terrorists. The FBI looked into such questions for several years before ultimately deciding to drop the matter, according to people familiar with the matter.
The FBI eventually stopped viewing Mr. Gulen’s activities as a matter for terrorism investigators, these people said. Turkish officials suspect Mr. Gulen is an American intelligence asset and that is why the Americans are protecting him.
In recent years, the FBI opened the criminal probe of the schools linked to Mr. Gulen, but that effort has largely petered out, these people said.
Mr. Gulen is in many ways a shadowy figure; he doesn't generally use telephones or commit instructions to paper. Privately, U.S. authorities sometimes compare him and his followers to a cult, operating with a high level of internal secrecy that makes their actions and intentions difficult to fathom at times.
Alp Aslandogan, who speaks on behalf of Mr. Gulen, has previously said the movement “has a problem with transparency” because it has had to take steps to guard itself from long-term persecution by the Turkish state.
Now Mr. Gulen is at the center of a high stakes tug of war between two North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners. Historically, the U.S. has frequently disagreed with Turkish demands for extradition of suspects, many of them directly linked to Mr. Gulen.
In past cases, Justice Department officials felt Turkish authorities didn't provide nearly enough information to justify extradition, according to people familiar with those discussions.
Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com and Adam Entous at adam.entous@wsj.com