Turkish NBA player Enes Kanter's father acquitted of Gülen links

Duvar English - Reuters

The father of NBA center Enes Kanter, a staunch follower of U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, has been acquitted of charges that he was a member of the Gülen movement.

Mehmet Kanter, the father and a genetics professor in Turkey, was alleged to have supported the Gülenists, whose official name is the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) - the group widely believed to have orchestrated the July 15, 2016 failed coup attempt that led to the deaths of over 250 people.

Enes Kanter, a 28-year-old center for the Boston Celtics in the U.S. National Basketball Association, was indicted in Turkey in 2018 on charges of belonging to an "armed terrorist group." He has been openly expressing his love for Gülen and even called him his "father."

Kanter has lived mainly in the United States for more than a decade and is awaiting U.S. citizenship.

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Turkey revoked Kanter's passport in 2017 and he has since been unable to travel abroad.

Mehmet Kanter was fired from his faculty position at Istanbul University and initially jailed for five days. He was acquitted on June 18 by a court in northwestern Turkey.

Enes Kanter's parents publicly disowned him through a Turkish publication back in 2016, soon after the coup attempt.

A former ally of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Gülen movement is behind numerous judicial plots in Turkey carried out to infiltrate into state institutions.

Ties between the AKP and Gülenists were severed following a 2013 graft probe launched by prosecutors close to the movement.

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