Prime minister's Chief Adviser Birol Erdem and his wife were arrested from the capital Ankara on Saturday morning for suspected links with the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), according to a judicial source.
Erdem was a former senior official at the Justice Ministry. He is one of the senior most bureaucrats to get arrested for alleged FETO links.
The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's office had issued the arrest warrants for the adviser and his wife Gulumser Erdem as part of its FETO probe, the source at the prosecutor's office, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, said.
FETO and its leader Fetullah Gulen, who has been living in the U.S. under self-imposed exile, is accused of orchestrating the military coup attempt on July, 2015 that martyred 250 people and injured 2,193 others.
Ankara also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.
Since the July 15, 2016, defeated coup, thousands of people, including bureaucrats, public servants and high-ranking military officials, have been arrested in the country, as investigations into the bid continue.
