Ailing Turkish prisoner has leg amputated after repeated ‘fit for prison’ assessments

A Turkish prisoner convicted over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement has had his left leg amputated below the knee after repeated medical assessments found him fit to remain incarcerated despite his deteriorating health, his daughter said on Friday.

Abdullah Tırpan underwent surgery at İstanbul’s Başakşehir Çam and Sakura City Hospital, where he had been transferred from Metris Prison earlier this week, the TR724 news website reported.

His daughter, Esra Tırpan Yakut, said doctors had amputated his left leg below the knee but were planning a second operation to remove more of the limb above the knee because the infection had spread farther up his leg.

“I don’t know what to say or how to express my feelings,” she said. “I’m very sad.”

The amputation follows a series of medical assessments that concluded Tırpan could remain in prison despite multiple serious health problems, including diabetes, nerve damage and circulatory disorders.

Turkey’s Council of Forensic Medicine, a state body that assesses prisoners’ fitness to remain incarcerated, concluded on December 17, 2025, that Tırpan could remain in prison. Medical boards at Tekirdağ City Hospital reached similar conclusions on May 7 and June 30, 2026.

The June report documented several chronic illnesses but concluded that Tırpan could manage his daily activities without assistance and did not require the suspension of his sentence on medical grounds.

Another examination on October 6 reportedly found no medical obstacle to his continued imprisonment, less than three weeks before the amputation.

Independent lawmaker Mustafa Yeneroğlu, who visited Tırpan at Metris Prison earlier this month, warned on October 9 that the prisoner could die without urgent medical intervention.

Yeneroğlu said Tırpan had advanced gangrene, severe discoloration and large open wounds on his left leg. He was unable to stand or meet his basic needs on his own, according to the lawmaker, who questioned medical assessments concluding otherwise.

Tırpan’s daughter announced on X on October 20 that doctors had obtained the family’s consent to amputate her father’s leg and appealed to authorities to suspend his sentence so he could receive treatment outside prison.

The family continues to seek the suspension of his sentence. It was not immediately clear whether authorities had initiated a new medical assessment following the amputation.

Under Article 16 of Turkey’s Law on the Execution of Sentences, the enforcement of a prison sentence may be suspended in certain cases involving serious illness or disability. The Justice Ministry says authorities can reopen the review process when a prisoner’s health deteriorates, even after an earlier request has been rejected.

Tırpan, a father of five who worked as a butcher for 55 years in the northwestern province of Tekirdağ, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison on August 8, 2019, for membership in an armed terrorist organization over his alleged involvement in the Gülen movement. Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals upheld his conviction on March 7, 2022.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted the faith-based Gülen movement, inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who died in 2024, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after a coup attempt in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.

The evidence cited in his conviction included having shares in a company operating a private school allegedly affiliated with the movement, participating in religious discussion meetings, making charitable donations to the movement, subscribing to the now-closed Zaman newspaper and maintaining an account at Bank Asya, a bank formerly affiliated with the movement.

The court also cited his decision to send his children and grandchildren to schools associated with the movement and his possession of certain religious publications.

Since the coup attempt in 2016, the Turkish government has accepted such activities as having an account at now-shuttered Bank Asya, one of Turkey’s largest commercial banks at the time; using the ByLock messaging application, an encrypted messaging app that was available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play; and subscribing to the now-shut-down Zaman daily or other publications affiliated with members of the movement as benchmarks for identifying and arresting alleged followers of the Gülen movement on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.

Tırpan denied the criminal allegations. He was first arrested in August 2016 and spent approximately 19 months in pretrial detention before being released pending the outcome of his legal proceedings. He was imprisoned again in February 2025 following the finalization of his sentence.