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Turkey Judges who Freed 'Gulen Supporters' Suspended

Three judges who ordered the release of a TV station boss and 74 police officers, accused of being part of a "parallel state" plotting to overthrow Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, were suspended Monday after he lashed out at the decision.

Turkey's Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) suspended the three Istanbul magistrates two days after their decision to free the men provoked a furious reaction from the Turkish government.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused the judges of having "received their orders from Pennsylvania", where cleric Fethullah Gulen, once an Erdogan ally but now his arch enemy, lives in exile.

Erdogan himself accused the magistrates of "usurping power", and the pro-government press denounced the judges as "traitors."

Turkish media reported that they had been suspended by HSYK for disciplinary reasons after an emergency meeting on Monday.

Despite the judges' decision, the suspects -- who include Hidayet Karaca, the head of the Gulen-linked Samanyolu TV station -- were not released, their lawyers said.

Erdogan has ordered huge purges of alleged Gulen supporters in the police, judiciary and civil service since the end of 2013 after government ministers and his own family were implicated in the country's largest ever corruption scandal, which he dismissed by a plot by the cleric to unseat him.

With the country going to the polls on June 7 in a general election which could see the emergence of an all-powerful presidency, Zuhtu Arslan, the head of the constitutional court warned Monday about the need for a strict separation of powers.

"Where power is not limited by laws," he said in a speech attended by Erdogan and Davutoglu, "rights and liberties are in danger."

Source: Agence France Presse


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