Invoking a remorse law, former army captain Burkay Karatepe, who went on the run when the 2016 coup attempt failed, explained in detail how he was associated with the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), his visits to the United States to meet its leader, and the orders he received from fellow military infiltrators of the group to capture President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during the coup attempt.
Karatepe was apprehended last week in western Turkish province of Afyonkarahisar, almost exactly 10 years after he disappeared. He was brought to a courthouse in Muğla, the province where he and fellow putschist officers tried to kill Erdoğan during the coup attempt and was questioned.
He agreed to collaborate with authorities, hoping that his sentence would be reduced, and confessed how he was introduced to FETÖ in 1998, when he was a middle school student. His life story was typical of a FETÖ infiltrator, as he noted that he was supplied with questions and answers to a military school exam by FETÖ members beforehand. He confessed that FETÖ assigned him a civilian “handler” while he was at military school and he guided him and fellow military infiltrators throughout the school. He said he was later assigned another handler.
