site.bta Sofia Says Suspected Gulenists Did Not Seek Protection from Bulgaria before Handover to Turkey

Sofia Says Suspected Gulenists Did Not Seek Protection from Bulgaria before Handover to Turkey

Sofia, October 18 (BTA) - Seven Turkish nationals who were handed over to Turkey over their suspected ties with the movement of Fethullah Gulen, did not seek protection from Bulgaria, border police deputy chief Svetoslav Manolov told journalists on Tuesday. His remark came a day after the media reported of the handover of the suspected guelists.

Manolov said that Bulgaria returned the men implementing a readmission agreement. They were detained at Danube bridge on October 14 along with two Syrians who were handed over to the migration authorities.

The Turkish nationals did not seek protection from the Bulgarian state and their handover was witnessed by human rights organizations and followed a notification of the national ombudsman.

According to a report in "Sega", headlined "The Interior Ministry Has Once Again Quietly Handed over Opponents of Erdogan", the Bulgarian authorities quietly returned to Turkey seven citizens suspected in participating in the attempted coup against President Erdogan from this summer.

Dnevnik.bg also has the story. It quotes the Turkish "Dogan" news agency as saying that the seven suspected gulenists were caught on October 14 by the border authorities in a truck on its way out of Bulgaria into Romania. The men carried no IDs and were handed over to the Turkish authorities at the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint on October 17. The driver, who is a Turkish national, was detained by the Bulgarian authorities and charged with human trafficking, the Turkish "Hurriyet" newspaper writes. Among the seven detained Turkish nationals were three fired police commissioners from the Turkish provinces of Diyarbakir and Kocaeli, a professor who teaches at the University in Malatya, a journalist from the recently closed "Zaman" newspaper, a high-school physics and mathematics teacher from Burdur, and a shop owner charged with drug dealing. Arrest warrants had been issued for all.