Former intel official says MİT abducts Gülenists from Africa, Central Asia by paying bribes

Associate Professor Ali Burak Darıcılı, an intelligence expert and former official at Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT), has said the organization has forcibly returned to Turkey individuals linked to the Gülen movement from some African and Central Asian countries by bribing local officials.

Darıcılı, who left MİT in 2014 and is currently an academic at Bursa Technical University, on Monday spoke to journalists Burcu Uğur and Şaban Sevinç during an online program on the Bizim TV YouTube channel.

During the program Darıcılı was asked how MİT had been able to forcibly return Gülen movement members in some African and Central Asian countries but had failed to do the same in European countries or the United States.

The ex-intelligence official explained that locals were being bribed to help them as collaborators in such “failed states” as those in Africa and Central Asia while carrying out the abduction of Gülenists.

Darıcılı added that it’s not possible to do the same in countries with strong governments, such as Germany, since “if you’re exposed performing such a covert activity, you’ll have a big problem under international law” because it amounts to interfering with the internal affairs of the relevant country.

When Sevinç claimed he could also abduct people from those countries using bribery and that one didn’t need to be an intelligence official to do that, Darıcılı said: “Don’t underestimate it [MİT because] knowing whom to bribe is also important.”