Turkey probes 500,000 digital documents to find more evidence for Gülen extradition

Turkey is in the process of probing and analyzing around half a million digital documents seized during the July 15 coup investigation, the justice minister has said, emphasizing that the inquiry would leave no doubts that the putsch was carried out under Fethullah Gülen's direction. 

According to Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ, who will meet with United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Oct. 26 and 27, Washington has not yet positively or negatively responded to a Turkish request for the temporary arrest of Fethullah Gülen even though the dossier was sent on Sept. 10. 

"There are around 500,000 digital documents: Computer records, flash drives, smart phone records, camera records as well as countless written documents that were seized during the operations [against Gülenists]. I know so many questions will find answers after all these documents are analyzed and assessed," Bozdağ told a small group of Ankara bureau chiefs on Oct. 9 in Ankara. 

The Justice Ministry is in the process of increasing its capacity to better probe digital documents, with some technical assistance to also be used while analyzing the documents, Bozdağ said. "I am sure many things will be revealed out of this probe. We perfectly know that the extradition process is a legal one, something we also abide by on extradition requests made by other countries. Even the current content of the dossier we have sent to the U.S. leaves no doubt in mind that this coup attempt was planned and carried out by Fethullah Gülen." 

Noting that there was a comprehensive meeting between Turkish and U.S. officials on Gülen's case in mid-September, Bozdağ said, "We made it clear that the future of the relationship between Turkey and the United States will be shaped by their...