Slain prosecutor’s daughter: My father was not with Gülen movement


Date posted: September 19, 2016

The daughter of former Bursa public prosecutor Seyfettin Yiğit, who allegedly committed suicide in a prison bathroom on Friday morning after he was put behind bars over Gülen movement ties, said on Saturday that her father was not affiliated with the Gülen movement but was with the Süleymancı movement, an Islamic movement in Turkey founded by Turkish Islamic scholar Süleyman Hilmi Tunahan in the early 20th century.

Speaking during a funeral service for her father in Bursa on Saturday, Ayça Yiğit told reporters that her father was for his entire life an opponent of the Gülen movement and that she doesn’t think he committed suicide in prison.

“We met with him on the occasion of the Eid al-Adha holiday. He was fine. He said he wrote some letters to us sent on various dates. They were not suicide letters. He even wrote [a letter] to President [Erdoğan]. We have not yet received them,” she said.

Forty-seven-year-old Yiğit had conducted an important phase of the now-famous Dec. 17, 2013 corruption investigation that implicated then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s family. He was in charge of the Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKİ) involvement in the corruption and after an evaluation of the documents, the TOKİ case was merged with the larger corruption investigation.

“He was not a Fethullahçı [member of the Gülen movement], he was a Süleymancı. This is not a suicide but a murder. He is not the kind of person to commit suicide,” she added.

An investigation has been launched into the incident amid a Human Rights Watch report on the existence of torture in Turkish prisons following the failed coup on July 15.

A teacher of 25 years, Mustafa Güneyler, who was fired from his post over alleged links to the Gülen movement, also committed suicide last month.

Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.

Despite Gülen and the movement having denied the accusation and calling for an international investigation, Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government launched a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.

More than 100,000 people have been purged from state bodies, nearly 43,000 detained and 23,500 arrested since the coup attempt. Arrestees include journalists, judges, prosecutors, police and military officers, academics, governors and even a comedian.

Source: Turkish Minute , September 18, 2016


Related News

Austrian politician documents Turkish surveillance abroad [on Gulen movement]

Turkish diplomatic offices around the world are gathering information in a bid to undermine organizations loyal to a Muslim cleric. Turkey is pressing nations to crack down on the Gulen movement’s network of schools and charities outside of the country.

My Meeting With Fethullah Gülen, the Man Accused of Plotting Turkey’s Coup

I saw the simple room in which he lives, adjacent to the room in which we met: a mattress on the floor, a prayer rug, a few books, and a reading table. Everything I knew before the meeting was confirmed that hour: This man is not the kind of person who would (or even could) plan a coup.

Turkish government defiant as battle over prep schools rises

Both the government and the Gülen movement have raised the stakes in the debate over a plan to regulate private prep schools, or dershanes. The tension recently peaked, with Erdoğan describing the group’s objection to his government’s plans as a “smear campaign.” Ekrem Dumanlı, editor-in-chief of daily Zaman, which is known for its close ties with the Gülen movement, wrote an open letter to Erdoğan and urged him to review his decision.

Fethullah Gülen condemns the terrorist attack in Gaziantep, Turkey

I condemn, in the strongest terms, the barbaric terrorist attack on attendees of a wedding ceremony in Gaziantep, Turkey that took the lives of more than fifty citizens, including children, and wounded many others. This is not just an attack on the attendees of a wedding, but also an attack on the solidarity of people of Anatolia, including Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Boshniaks, Albanians, Georgians and Circassians and others who lived as neighbors for centuries.

Prosecutor’s office launches investigation into Şahin’s claim

Şahin claimed that a high-level judge at the Supreme Court of Appeals had acted contrary to legal procedure and contacted Gülen before issuing his final verdict in the case against the businessman several years ago. “What should I do in this case?” asked the judge, according to the claims of the former justice minister. He went on to say that Gülen had allegedly told the judge to do “what justice requires.”

Today’s Zaman’s Mahir Zeynalov leaves Turkey under deportation threat

Zeynalov has been put on a list of foreign individuals who are barred from entering Turkey under Law No. 5683, because of “posting tweets against high-level state officials,” Today’s Zaman learned

Latest News

Turkish inmate jailed over alleged Gülen links dies of heart attack in prison

Message of Condemnation and Condolences for Mass Shooting at Bondi Beach, Sydney

Media executive Hidayet Karaca marks 11th year in prison over alleged links to Gülen movement

ECtHR faults Turkey for convictions of 2,420 applicants over Gülen links in follow-up to 2023 judgment

New Book Exposes Erdoğan’s “Civil Death Project” Targeting the Hizmet Movement

European Human Rights Treaty Faces Legal And Political Tests

ECtHR rejects Turkey’s appeal, clearing path for retrials in Gülen-linked cases

Erdoğan’s Civil Death Project’ : The ‘politicide’ spanning more than a decade

Fethullah Gülen’s Vision and the Purpose of Hizmet

In Case You Missed It

Confluence of cultures at 14th edition of IFLC

Kimse Yok Mu waits weeks for aid campaign go-ahead

Fethullah Gülen says Turkey’s involvement in a war would bring mass destruction

GYV slams government attempt to silence critics with recent measures

1,500 pounds of frozen meat for needy Staten Island families

Panel Discussion – The Gulen Schools In Central Asia

Pak-Turk school teachers to be deported as Erdogan visits Pakistan

Copyright 2026 Hizmet News