A US-based Turkish preacher who has emerged as an arch-enemy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan went on trial in absentia yesterday along with several former police chiefs charged over the corruption allegations that hit the Turkish leader in 2013.
Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan turned chief foe, was not present at the start of the proceedings in Istanbul, with Washington failing to respond to Turkish requests for the cleric’s extradition from his secluded compound in Pennsylvania.
Gulen is being tried along with dozens of former police officers, including the former head of Istanbul police Yakup Saygili and the city’s former deputy criminal police chief Kazim Aksoy, both of whom are said to have ordered the graft probe.
The pair have been held in detention since September 2014 and were both in court at the start of the trial.
A total of 69 people, including Gulen, are on trial, facing terms ranging from seven years to 330 years.
The judge at Istanbul’s main courthouse opened the proceedings by conducting a roll call of the defendants and the plaintiffs before lawyers began their statements, an AFP correspondent said.
Eight defendants, including Saygili and Aksoy, who had been remanded in custody were brought to the courthouse from the prison.
Aside from Gulen, the other suspects had been released from custody pending trial.
Two other suspects – Gulen aide Sinan Dursun and former deputy police chief Hamza Tosun – are at large and considered fugitives.
The corruption allegations directly implicated some of Erdogan’s inner circle, including his son Bilal.
The government denied the claims, which it said came from Gulen and his acolytes in the judiciary and police.
Erdogan, his son Bilal, son-in-law Berat Albayrak and Turkey’s spy chief Hakan Fidan are among the plaintiffs in the case, along with four former ministers who lost their jobs over the corruption allegations.
The allegations, based on bugged conversations, enthralled Turkey like a soap opera.
The top suspects are charged with plotting to topple the Turkish government with the graft allegations, as well as membership of a “terrorist group”.
“There is no concrete evidence that my client has been involved in any violence, not a single document,” Gulen’s lawyer Nurullah Albayrak said. “We have never seen such a murky investigation in the history of our country.”
The scandal was seen as one of the biggest challenges to the dominance of then prime minister Erdogan.
He survived the allegations, however, and went on to become president in August 2014.
Investigations related to the allegations were closed and the authorities moved to expel Gulen supporters from the police and judiciary.
Despite living outside of Turkey, Gulen built up huge influence in the country through allies in the police and judiciary, media and a vast network of cramming schools designed to make up for deficiencies in the state education system.
Ankara now accuses Gulen of running what it calls the Fethullahaci Terror Organisation/Parallel State Structure (FeTO/PDY) and seeking to overthrow the legitimate Turkish authorities. 
Gulen supporters decry the accusations as ridiculous, saying all he leads is a more informal group known as Hizmet (Service).
Addressing the court, Albayrak mocked the indictment – which describes Gulen’s group as “a network of treachery nested within the state” – as a “comedy script”.
He said: “Throughout his life Fethullah Gulen and his movement have had no intention other than promoting tolerance and dialogue in society, let alone engage in terrorism.”
According to the Anatolia news agency, around 1,800 people, including 750 police officers and 80 soldiers, have been detained as part of a crackdown against the followers of Gulen since arrests began in the summer 2014.
Some 280 of them are still in jail pending trial, Anatolia said.
The current trial related to only one of several investigations.
“Hundreds of people’s lives have been ruined just because they stepped on the feet of the government,” said Murat Erdogan, lawyer for Yakup Saygili and Kazim Aksoy.