Levent Kenez/Stockholm
Kenyan authorities confirmed on Monday that four Turkish nationals under UN protection who were kidnapped by masked gunmen in the early morning hours of Friday had been deported to Turkey. Nordic Monitor has uncovered a document revealing that one of the four individuals had previously been profiled by Turkish diplomats in Kenya and reported to Ankara.
According to a decision dated December 18, 2018, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation (file no. 2018/43629) into 65 Turkish nationals who were listed by Turkish diplomats in Kenya without any concrete evidence of wrongdoing. They were subsequently charged with “membership in a terrorist group” by prosecutor Adem Akıncı.
The four people deported to Turkey included Alparslan Taşçı, Hüseyin Yeşilsu and Öztürk Uzun. Also on the list prepared by the Turkish Embassy was 46-year-old Mustafa Genç, the principal of the Light Schools Academy and head of the Harmony Institute.
In a video message shared on social media shortly after the incident, Genç’s wife described the harrowing experience. “My son, two daughters, my husband, and I were leaving home when, at around 9:30 a.m., a black car crashed into us. As soon as we stopped, four armed men got out of the car in front of us and kidnapped my husband and son,” she said.
“I was left helpless, screaming with my two daughters. My 16-year-old son, Abdullah, was released about six hours later. We still have no news about my husband or the three other kidnapped individuals. I urgently call on the Kenyan government, the United Nations and all other authorities for help,” she added.
Mustafa Genç is listed as number 36 in the case file prepared by the prosecution for legal proceedings against him.:
After a long period of silence, the Kenyan government issued a statement on Monday through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The statement said: “Kenya confirms that four nationals of the Republic of Türkiye were repatriated to their home country on Friday, 18 October 2024, at the request of the government of Türkiye. Kenya acceded to this request on the strength of the robust historical and strategic relations anchored on bilateral instruments between our respective countries. The four have been residing in Kenya as refugees. The Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs has received assurances from the Turkish authorities that the four will be treated with dignity in keeping with national and international law.”
Statement from the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the four kidnapped Turkish nationals:
The profiling documents were conveyed to the foreign ministry by Deniz Eke, the Turkish ambassador to Kenya from 2014 to 2018, and Ahmet Cemil Miroğlu, who served as envoy from 2018 to 2022.
The Turkish Embassy previously attracted public attention following the enforced disappearance of Turkish teacher Selahattin Gülen in Nairobi in May 2021. It was later revealed that Gülen had been detained and returned to Turkey by agents of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT). Shortly after his repatriation from Kenya, an Ankara court arrested Gülen on terrorism-related charges.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan turned against the Gülen movement, a group critical of him, after major corruption investigations in December 2013 incriminated him, his family members and his business and political associates. The order to spy on people and organizations affiliated with the movement came in early 2014, resulting in volunteers of the movement being targeted with criminal prosecutions on fabricated charges of terrorism.
The crackdown on the movement intensified after a coup attempt in 2016. Since then, the assets of individuals, corporations and organizations that were seen as affiliated with the movement were branded as war spoils open to plunder. More than 130,000 civil servants have been dismissed by the government with no effective judicial or administrative investigation, 4,560 of whom were judges and prosecutors who were replaced by pro-Erdogan staff.
Turkish diplomatic and consular missions around the world have systematically spied on critics of President Erdogan, profiled their organizations and listed their names as if they were part of a terrorist organization. Working as a teacher in a Gülen-inspired school or contributing to non-profit institutions affiliated with the movement abroad are considered acts of terrorism by the Erdogan government.
Educator Orhan İnandı, who was included in a profiling list prepared by Turkish diplomats, was kidnapped in Kyrgyzstan on May 31, 2021 and illegally brought to Turkey by MIT. İnandı, who had lived in Kyrgyzstan for nearly 30 years, was arrested on July 12, 2021, convicted of charges of membership in a terrorist organization and sentenced to 21 years in prison in 2023.
As previously disclosed by Nordic Monitor, the foreign ministry sent lists of profiled Turkish nationals in two CDs to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, the national police and Turkey’s intelligence agency MIT on February 19, 2018 via an official document for further administrative or legal action, the punishment of their relatives back in Turkey and the seizure of their assets.
Public prosecutor Akıncı, who received the foreign ministry document on February 23, 2018, forwarded the classified CDs including information on 4,386 Erdogan critics to the organized crime unit of the Ankara Police Department for further action. The police conveyed the results of its investigations to the public prosecutor.
