RIZE, Turkey
Turkey will demand the extradition of two former prosecutors wanted for attempting to overthrow the government from Germany, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.
Zekeriya Oz and Celal Kara, who were involved in a 2013 corruption investigation that targeted senior ministers in Erdogan’s cabinet, fled to Armenia via Georgia on Monday, shortly before an arrest warrant was issued for them and another former prosecutor, Mehmet Yuzgec.
On Friday, Turkish media reported that Oz and Kara had traveled from Armenia to Germany.
“I believe there will most probably be a red notice issued for them," Erdogan said, referring to a request circulated by Interpol to arrest a suspect with a view to extradition.
Addressing civil society groups in the Black Sea town of Rize, Erdogan suggested that Germany would face difficulties extraditing future suspects from Turkey if Oz and Kara were not returned.
“We will now see what Germany will do,” he said. “Germany cannot demand the extradition of an offender [if it does not do so in this case.]”
The three ex-prosecutors are said to have formed a criminal organization and attempted to overthrow the government by force in a plot allegedly masterminded by U.S.-based preacher Fetullah Gulen.
Erdogan went on to accuse a “coalition of a grand betrayal net including terror organizations, sectarian groups, the media, so-called intellectuals who are fighting the nation's values and the parallel state” of seeking to damage Turkey's reputation.
