Erdogan regime’s defamation of Hizmet at full throttle – UK-based academic denies recent allegations


Date posted: October 28, 2016

In a written statement released both in Turkish and English, UK-based academic Özcan Keleş denied recent allegations about him that appeared in Turkey’s mostly pro-government media outlets, saying that only his name, his father’s name, his hometown and the fact that Aksaray is a city in Turkey were accurate in the articles.

“Everything else is untrue,” Keleş says.

Keleş has been chairperson of the London-based Dialogue Society since 2008 and is a non-practicing barrister as well as a full-time Ph.D. candidate in the sociology of human rights at the University of Sussex.

What follows is his full press statement published on his personal blog on Tuesday.

On Saturday, October 21, 2016, twenty anti-terror police accompanied by a news crew raided a block of five flats in Aksaray, Turkey, that belongs to my father, Ömer Keleş.

Within an hour, the story featured in no fewer than thirty media outlets, across Turkey. Doğan Media (DHA) and Ihlas News Agency supplied the story to the Turkish press. DHA and Hürriyet ran the story as “Police operation against villa of Fethullah Gülen’s right-hand man”. Hürriyet’s story says that I, Özcan Keleş, am Gülen’s right-hand man; that I was spotted in footage taken a day after the coup in Pennsylvania tending to Gülen’s medical needs; that I live in the US; that my father is the movement’s UK leader (“imam”); that there is an arrest warrant for my father and me in Turkey; that I have a three-storey villa in Aksaray; that the villa was empty when raided and that the police discovered many empty safes including hidden ones in the walls and floors on every floor of the villa; that a firearm was recovered from the villa; and that the villa’s CCTV cameras and “advanced” alarm system were particularly telling. Hürriyet ran this story and the headline without using qualifications such as “alleged”, “so-called” or quotation marks. 

Show Haber (popular TV station) featured the story on its evening news, superimposing images of my father and me on footage of the police raid, describing the villa as “mysterious” and saying that the raid had discovered “secret artefacts, sections and secrets”; that I never left the side of Gülen; and that I lived in the US for years. Other variations were added to the story by other media outlets. For example, Akşam ran the story as “Gülen’s right-hand man ran away with the cash”. Haberbedava said that I made my first appearance before a camera when I was spotted tending to Gülen a day after the coup; that the mystery around my identity continues; and that my attempt to discredit Turkey to foreign media through my critical English tweets is telling. Haber10’s headline read that I am the right-hand man of the “terrorist leader.” Hakikat Perver says that Gülen’s money safe “exploded”, in reference to the safes and me. All of the stories emphasise the name of my alleged villa (“Nur Konağı” in Turkish, “House of Light” in English) as further “proof” of the “villa’s” connection to me.

What is true is that (1) my name is Özcan Keleş, (2) that Ömer Keleş is my father, (3) that my family originates from Aksaray, and (4) that Aksaray is a city in Turkey. Everything else is untrue. I am not Gülen’s right-hand man. I am not influential in Hizmet. I have never lived in the US; the last time I visited was in 2014. I was at home in London on the night of and days following the coup so I was not the person shown with his back to the camera; I did not make my first appearance before the cameras next to Gülen; I have a YouTube channel and have appeared on TV and podcasts since 2008; I am not a “mysterious unknown”; I’m active on social media, volunteer my personal affiliation and identity; am well-known in many groups and circles, including the Turkish-speaking community in London, and have my own weblog. I have a number of law degrees and qualifications and am a Barrister currently studying for a PhD in human rights.

I have never owned property in Turkey. The building that was raided is not a villa but a block of five flats; it was not empty but had occupants. It does not belong to me, but my father. My father built it for his ageing parents and in-laws, my grandparents. It is a three-storey building of five apartments; one each for the grandparents on both sides, one for their carers, one for my parents and one for guests. My parents moved my grandparents into their new homes some twenty years ago with carers to live with them and to tend to their needs, while my parents were in the UK. When my parents went to Turkey, they lived there and looked after my grandparents. The last time I was there was in 2013 when I went to visit my sick grandfather, who passed away shortly after I left. Today I have one surviving grandparent, who was being looked after at that building that was raided. The name of the block (House of Nur) is a reference to the fact that in Islam the elderly are considered to emanate “nur” which means light.

As for the safes and other allegations. My father had a safe installed for each of the five apartments and an extra one for his apartment. My grandparents kept their valuables there. The safes were empty because three of the four occupants of the apartments had passed away. Had they been alive, the police would have discovered their pocket money and valuables. My father was the legal owner of a licensed firearm. It is not uncommon for wealthy people in Turkey to keep one as a deterrent in their home. The house is not mysterious and does not have any secret rooms. In fact, the house has hosted many AK Party supporters and government officials.

My father is not the Hizmet movement’s UK “imam”; he is not even a “Hizmet sympathiser”; he has not attended a Hizmet fundraising dinner or sohbet for at least five years. He has always been critical of Hizmet. He is very well known within the North London Turkish-speaking community and many, including AK Party members, can attest to his affiliations and his views. His closest group of friends are all AK Party supporters and many have official roles with the UK branch of UETD, an AK Party-supporting group. He has consistently voted for the AK Party, even after it turned on Hizmet. In the past, as one who supports worthy causes regardless of the group behind it, my father has donated to Aziziye, Suleymani, Diyanet and Mevlana mosques in London and other Diyanet mosques and maasjids in Turkey. His most recent project was donating to and personally working on the construction of the Diyanet mosque in Hornsey.

My father and family are being unjustly targeted because I have written and spoken on Hizmet and Turkey.”

Source: Turkey Purge , October 25, 2016


Related News

Turkish PM heads to Brussels for tough talks with EU

Although the prime minister argues that an ongoing corruption and graft probe engulfing his own ministers is simply a plot hatched by an “illegal gang” that he describes as “parallel state” operated by Fethullah Gülen, a cleric in self-exile in the U.S., EU officials have made clear that such rhetoric has not been bought in Brussels.

After The Coup Attempt, A Crackdown In Turkey

Once considered a beacon of hope for the Middle East, Turkey has been rapidly backsliding on issues of democracy, freedom of the press, and human rights. One would have thought this downfall hit bottom on July 15, when a bloody coup was attempted, leaving behind more than 250 dead.

PM Erdoğan once defended Hizmet, said it was Feb. 28 [military coup] victim

Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has recently accused the faith-based Hizmet movement inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen of cooperating with coup perpetrators during the Feb. 28, 1997 post-modern coup era, defended the same movement at a parliamentary coup commission in 2012, when he said the movement’s followers had been victimized during the coup.

Turkey further from EU accession than in 2007, Swoboda says

Swoboda said “The main problem is that there are severe accusations from Erdoğan against the Gülen movement over infiltrating the judiciary and the police. He is using this argument to change a lot of personalities in the judiciary and police, trying to restrict the independence of the Constitutional Court and the HSYK. Therefore, we fear for the independence of justice,”

Brussels, Paris and Berlin

As the Turkish prime minister opted to market the graft probe as a coup attempt against his government and accused the Hizmet movement of masterminding this coup, interest was aroused in the Hizmet movement and its clout.

Kosovo President: Arrest of Gulenists was wrong

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci in a televised interview for T7 admitted for the first time that the arrest and deportation of the six Turkish men suspected of their links with Fetullah Gulen’s movement was wrong. Thaci has earlier publicly endorsed the extraditions, saying the six Turks were a danger to the fledgling country’s national security.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

Unlawful accreditation ban against Today’s Zaman reporter ends

Turkic American Alliance hosts iftar for members of US Congress

Military coup documents contain plans to prevent works of Hizmet movement

Police raid prominent journalists’ foundation GYV in Turkey

Turkish Gov’t Unveils 16 Ways to Identify Gulenists [as Terrorists]

New Constitution expected to eradicate remnants of Feb. 28 coup

PM made the wrong choice

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News